The office door opened, and a woman’s voice said, “Now, run along, Ronnie. If you ever do that again, you’ll never drive for me or anyone else on the coast. Is that understood?”
A heavyset man with a dark beard and a spiderweb tattooed on his neck slunk out of the office, but not before saying, “Yes, Ms. Sloat. I understand.” He glanced at me as he hurried past, his forehead, ears, and neck a blushing red.
Max Sloat appeared at the door and looked at me. Nearly my height, she wore a khaki work shirt, jeans, and heavy boots. She had short, dark hair parted on one side, rounded, ruddy cheeks, and inquisitive, unadorned eyes that appraised me with obvious curiosity. “And you are?”
I introduced myself. “I represent Kenny Sanders. He’s the young man who—”
“I know who Kenny Sanders is, and I heard he had a new lawyer,” she interrupted as she turned and walked back to her desk with a swagger you couldn’t miss. She must have been a good bowler judging from the trophies displayed on a low table along one wall. “I only have a few minutes, but come in.” As she sat, I noticed a tattoo on her left forearm that said “Annie” with a heart on either side. “That kid murdered one of Coos Bay’s finest citizens. What do you hope to accomplish at this late date, Mr. Claxton?”
“His freedom. I’m convinced he didn’t kill Sonny Jenson.”
“A jury of his peers decided otherwise.” Her smile dripped with derision. “How quixotic of you, Mr. Claxton.”
I kept a level expression. “If by quixotic you mean I’m questioning incompetent lawyering, a coerced confession, a lying witness, and a sixteen-year-old boy given a life sentence, then, yeah, just call me Don.”
A faint smile creased her lips. “I see. How could I possibly help you? I know nothing about this.”
“The lying witness, Howard Coleman, drove a truck for you. He was found murdered in the Millicoma recently. I’m sure you know about it.”
“Oh, that was horrible what happened to Howard. We’ve been cooperating with Sheriff Stoddard.” She smiled in an offhand way. “I guess I’d forgotten about his connection with the Kenny Sanders trial.”
“I’m wondering if I could have access to Howard Coleman’s driving logs and any information about anyone he might’ve driven with, that sort of thing.” It never hurts to ask.
Her face hardened. “Why would that be of any concern to you and Kenny Sanders?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
An icy smile. “We’ve provided information to the sheriff, but here at Sloat we respect the privacy of our drivers. I’m sure you understand.”
That answer echoed what Walter Sanders had told me. “Not really. You own the company. You can do what you want.” Her expression didn’t change, and I persisted. “I’m also interested in learning about any contract trucks you might have had running on the Umpqua River Highway the day before yesterday. The truck I’m interested in is a Peterbilt, dark blue or black.”
“My hands are tied, Mr. Claxton.”
My face got hot, and my headache throbbed even more. I took my hat off, exposing the bandage that covered my head wound. “These are not arbitrary questions. My daughter, my dog, and I were forced off the highway and into the Umpqua River two days ago by someone driving the cab of a logging truck.” I pointed at the bandage. “And I got eighteen stitches as a souvenir. I’d like to know who did it.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, but what leads you to think one of my trucks was involved? After all, my drivers are well trained, and the company has an outstanding safety record.”
“You’re the biggest trucking company on the South Coast. Seemed like a good place to start.”
She paused for a moment, and I could almost hear the wheels spinning in her head. “Tell you what, Mr. Claxton, I’ll make some inquiries. Give me your card. If I turn up anything, I’ll call you.” She forced a smile, then glanced at her watch. “Now, you’ll have to excuse me, I’ve got another meeting.”
At the door, she stopped and rested her eyes on me. They were steel gray with a dark blue rim around the irises. “You really believe Kenny Sanders is innocent?”
The question surprised me. “I wouldn’t have taken the case if I didn’t.”
Something stirred behind her eyes, too subtle for me to read. “I see,” she said in a voice that barely carried to my ears. “I never considered that a possibility.” With that, she opened the door.
I left Sloat Trucking that day feeling good about the Peterbilt truck identification and the cable that looked a lot like what was used to hogtie Howard Coleman. Max Sloat, on the other hand, was a bit of an enigma. Was she cleverly stonewalling me, or would she actually help? And what about her obvious interest in the possibility that Kenny Sanders was innocent? More questions for which I had no answers.
Chapter Seventeen
I’m not sure who was happier to see Nando—my dog or my daughter. Beaming a smile, Claire hugged him, and Archie did a little squealing, butt-wagging dance around my friend when he arrived just before noon the next day. Always at the sartorial cutting edge, Nando wore a silk shirt of rich colors and floral design, linen trousers, and open-toed leather sandals. He handed me a hefty grocery bag. “I stopped on the way and picked up a few items for lunch, including some fresh halibut.” He smiled, the one that always lights up the room. “Calvin, I am hoping you will make me a very happy man by making Cuban-style fish tacos for lunch.”
I laughed and told him I’d try.
“Wait till you see the view from the deck,” Claire said. She took his hand and led him through the house. I stayed back to check the shoebox he’d set down next to his leather bag. It held the Glock. The clip was full, the gun heavy in my hand and slick with a film of oil. Nando had obviously cleaned and loaded it, which didn’t surprise me. I stashed it up in my bedroom and put up the groceries—fish, mangoes, avocados, tomatoes, red onion, cilantro, limes, hot sauce, and tortillas—before joining them on the deck with three Mirror Pond Pale Ales in hand. The sun was out, but a mass of gray fog lurking to the north threatened to cut the fine weather short. “The Oregon Coast is very different from the coast of Cuba,” Nando said as he looked off toward the lighthouse, “but seeing the ocean always makes me homesick.”
We talked in general for a while—Nando with the goings-on in Portland and Claire with her impressions of Harvard and her work on the Gulf, documenting what happens when you inundate delicate wetlands with crude oil. It wasn’t a pretty picture, even eight years later.
By the time we got around to the business at hand, the fog had swallowed up our view and sent the temperature into steep decline. I fired up the outdoor gas grill, we retreated into the kitchen, and I handed out food prep duties. Claire and I began laying out the Kenny Sanders case for Nando. At one point he shook his head. “It does not look good for the young man. If he didn’t do it, his mother probably did, and she is dead.”
“We’re both convinced Kenny didn’t do it,” I responded, placing the halibut in a marinade of olive oil, lime juice, and spices I found in the cupboard. “And I’m having a hard time imagining his mother went to her grave knowing her son was doing a life sentence for a crime she committed. It doesn’t compute for me.”
“I hope Kenny’s mom didn’t do it, but I’m less sure than Dad,” Claire chipped in.
“Okay,” Nando said, “setting them both aside for now, we are left with the stepfather, the wife of the victim, or some random hoodlum who is still out there. What do we know about the wife and stepfather?”
“Very little,” Claire said. “The investigators seized on Kenny immediately, so there was scant follow-up on other suspects. Dad and I both read the police reports. The stepfather, Walter Sanders, said he was in Newport on business, and motel records there confirmed he’d checked in the afternoon of the murder. That was corroborated by his credit card receipt.”
“So his alibi’s nonexistent,”
I said, as I started to assemble the mango and avocado salsa. “That’s a straight shot, less than a hundred miles. He could have easily driven to Coos Bay, done the deed, and driven back to the motel that night.”
Nando nodded. “Motive?”
“His wife was having an affair with the victim, but we don’t know if he knew. He also took Condor Enterprises in a different direction after Sonny’s death.” I described the move to video poker parlors, adult shops, and payday loan businesses. “Maybe Sonny didn’t want that. He was seen as a straight arrow, civic-minded.”
“What about the widow, Twila Jenson?”
“We don’t know if she knew about the affair, either.”
“Her alibi’s tighter,” Claire said. “She found the body but claimed she was in her studio apartment in Coos Bay at the time of the murder.”
“Doing what?”
“Painting and listening to opera, according to the report. A security camera on the building shows her entering four hours earlier, then leaving twenty-five minutes before she found the body at a little after eleven.”
“How precise is the time of death?”
“Very,” I said, wrapping the tortillas in foil and sticking them in the oven to warm. “Sonny Jenson’s watch was shattered at 8:32 p.m. Body temperature and blood coagulation were consistent with that time.”
“The back door of the building was self-locking, so if she snuck out it would have locked behind her, meaning she would’ve had to re-enter from the front, where the camera was.”
Nando snorted. “Please, she could have taped the lock like the famous Watergate burglars.”
“Of course. But the detectives also noted that the video showed she wore the same clothes coming and going—a white blouse and tan slacks. Her clothes were examined. They had some paint on them, but no blood. It was a bloody murder, so unless she somehow carried an identical set of clothes, it seemed unlikely she could have done it.”
I slipped out the door to put the fish on the grill, and when I returned Nando was waiting with another question. “No leads on strangers?”
“None. The detectives didn’t interview anyone else except the witness who put Kenny near the scene. There’s another, less defined angle, though. We know that Howard Coleman, the man who testified against Kenny, drove a truck for an outfit called Sloat Trucking. We also suspect he might’ve been ready to talk about his testimony.”
I explained the appointment Coleman made but never kept with Mimi Yoshida and the possibility that the truck that knocked us into the river could have been driven by one of Sloat’s drivers. I looked at Claire. “Tell Nando what you learned yesterday from Sissy Anderson.”
“Sissy was Coleman’s girlfriend. They were on again, off again, but she loved the man dearly. She told me Coleman entered a business arrangement with two brothers about eighteen months ago. An arrangement that was spinning off enough cash that they were planning to buy a house. She thought one of them drove for Sloat, too, but she wasn’t sure.”
“And Kenny Sanders told us he heard via the prison grapevine that Coleman was involved in the fentanyl trade,” I said.
“That’s right,” Claire added, “but Sissy claimed she didn’t know what the business was. I’m not sure I believe her. Anyway, she thinks these guys killed Coleman.”
“Because he was going to talk to Yoshida?” Nando asked.
“She doesn’t know or wouldn’t say,” Claire said. “I caught a glimpse of one of them at a restaurant, but Sissy didn’t know his name. The other’s name is Robert, but she’s never seen him. She’s afraid of these guys.”
We broke off the discussion at this point to retrieve the fish from the grill and build our tacos. After Nando took his first bite, he raised his bottle. “Even in an unfamiliar kitchen, you excel, my friend.” I thanked him, and we ate in silence for a while. Nando said, “I do not have a good feeling about this. The stack of hay has too many needles.”
Claire laughed. I added more hot sauce to my taco. “I agree. It’s complicated.” I looked at Nando. “How long can you stay?”
“I have told my employees I’m taking a beach vacation. I am at your disposal, Calvin.”
I glanced at Claire, then back to my friend. “Thanks, Nando. Why don’t you start by seeing if you can get a line on the two brothers?”
He drew his face into a scowl, revealing a side he didn’t show that often. “It will be a pleasure to find the persons who put you in the river. One could be named Robert. One could be driving for Sloat Trucking. They may be in the fentanyl drug trade.” He turned to Claire. “And you saw the one who is not Robert.” After she described him, Nando shrugged. “I have started with less.”
“Claire,” I said, “why don’t you provide some research help for Nando? I’m sure he’s going to be searching some of his databases. Also, why don’t you go back over everything in the sheriff’s report on Walter Sanders, see if there’s any way to crack his so-called alibi? Dig deep. Don’t assume anything. And one other thing—see what you can find on the death of Max Sloat’s father, Millard Sloat. He died fifteen years ago in some kind of boating accident.” Claire flashed an annoyed look. “Just a hunch,” I countered. “Indulge me.”
A half hour later, I left Nando and Claire huddled over her computer, with Archie in the corner watching them both. My job that afternoon was to first meet with Twila Jenson and then with Sheriff Hershel Stoddard.
As I headed north on the Cape Arago Highway, I fought off a feeling of frustration. It seemed like we were stuck at base camp instead of climbing the mountain, but at least we had the semblance of a plan now.
It was a start.
Chapter Eighteen
I offered to meet Twila Jenson at a coffee shop, but she insisted I come to her house. She told me it was a town house in Coos Bay, but it was more like a town mansion. Located on a multiblock knoll on the southeast side of town called Telegraph Hill, the street side of the place had a deceptively low profile, but when she opened the door and ushered me in, a view of the Isthmus Slough and Coos Bay beyond it boomed out from a floor-to-ceiling glass wall running the length of the sunken living room.
“Stunning view,” I said after introducing myself.
“Thank you, Mr. Claxton. I never tire of it.”
“Call me Cal.”
She smiled. “And you can call me Twila, Cal.” She had black hair with stylish pewter streaks, dark eyes, and a hesitant smile that had a slight tilt to it. I followed her down four thickly carpeted steps to the living room and took a seat, keeping my cap on to obviate the need to explain my head wound. Wearing stretch pants and a silver colored sweater, she tucked her bare feet under her as she took a seat. Out of nowhere a young Latina woman appeared balancing two tall glasses of iced tea, a plate of sliced lemons, and a bowl of sugar on a lacquered tray.
Twila thanked the girl, turned to me, and smiled again. “I thought you might be thirsty.” I nodded thanks and took the glass she offered me. “Now, let’s get this over with, shall we?”
I cleared my throat. “I appreciate your agreeing to meet like this. I’m sure this is still a painful subject for you, so I’ll keep my questions as brief as possible.”
Her smile crumbled, but she held her composure. “Thank you. I believe the best therapy is to face the past. It’s the only way to move forward.” The words were there, but her voice lacked conviction.
I started with some bland background questions, jotting a few notes as we conversed. The exchange didn’t become interesting until I said, “How serious was the dispute between Kenny and your husband, the one that wound up with your husband in the pool and his car keyed?”
Her smile was edged with disdain. “That was nothing. Sonny made a big deal out of it to teach Kenny a lesson about controlling his temper.”
“He had Kenny arrested for assault.”
“Yes, but he never meant to press c
harges. In fact, I think he and Walter were in it together, you know, a life lesson for the boy. Sonny liked Kenny.”
“Why didn’t this come out at the trial? The incident was cited as a key motive for Kenny.”
She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. “I really don’t know. You’ll have to ask Walter.”
“No one asked you?”
“No, they didn’t. I was given a wide berth by the sheriff. The grieving widow and all.”
“Was anything bothering your husband in the period leading up to his death, or was he having difficulty with anyone?”
She hesitated, then exhaled slowly, her eyes never leaving my face. “He and Walter were arguing over the direction of Condor.”
“What were they arguing about?”
“Walter had some valuable insider information on the LNG thing, and he wanted to cash in. Sonny was against it. He didn’t think the project was the best thing for Coos Bay.”
“How serious were these arguments?”
“They were both hardheaded, so pretty heated, I guess. I believe a lot of money was at stake.”
“This didn’t come out in the course of the investigation?”
“Not that I know of. No one asked me about it, and it wasn’t that unusual for them to be bickering, to tell the truth.”
My pulse ticked up, but I held a neutral expression. “What was the nature of the insider information?”
She paused for a moment, furrowing her brow. “Walter somehow found out the preferred route of the pipeline from California, which was being held in secret. He probably bribed someone on the inside of Bexar. He wanted to buy up key parcels—easements, outright property sales—and then resell them to Bexar.” She curled up one side of her mouth. “You know, good ol’ real estate speculation.”
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