Chapter Thirty

I relayed wordfor word the little I'd heard to Diana. She was the only one I could reach and she was on her way to an assignment.

"What do you make of that, Elizabeth? I mean the scene with Randall Kenyon. The rest of it's pretty straightforward."

I considered for half a beat.

"Randall Kenyon had been trying to persuade James Longbaugh to represent him — to make the sale of Elk Rock Ranch from Wendy to Randall happen.

"James declined.

"Randall used the well-tested method of winning over people by calling them insulting names.

"Somehow James withstood those blandishments and kicked the man out of his office."

"Makes sense," Diana said.

"Doesn't get us any farther."

"No, it doesn't."

****

Scott Hoole washome when I called from the station.

That wasn't a huge surprise.

More snow fell in the mountains overnight. In Sherman we got slush. When they said the eastern pass to Cooke City was closed for the winter, they meant until summer. Spring — even Wyoming spring — didn't count.

But Scott Hoole not only didn't seem affected by being snowed in, he didn't even mention it.

When I identified myself he responded, "Gee said you'd call."

I did not rush out my appreciation for his food or which of the restaurants he'd been associated with was my favorite.

Not that I was above that.

But, first, I was calling about the killing of his long-time friend.

Second, common sense said that a man who'd retired to Cooke City, Montana, was not longing to relive his giddy celebrity days.

So, I warmed up Scott Hoole with questions about how he started working for Elk Rock Ranch and if that was how he and Keefe became friends.

"No, we were already friends. Some of the kids at school thought he was weird. I liked him. He wasn't much interested in being my friend back, but I wore him down." He chuckled. A nice sound. Low and warm, like melted chocolate.... which made me think of one of his signature desserts that—

"As for working at Elk Rock, they didn't hire too many locals — most kids who had wrangling skills worked on their family's place, not for somebody else. But I was from town." He chuckled. "And Keefe's friend. His mom knew me and she ruled the kitchen.

"Started as kitchen assistant. Worked my way up. Gave me a taste for cooking, so to speak. Learned more from Ulla Dobey than all of culinary school. I kept getting better and better jobs, farther and farther away. But everyplace I went, one of my conditions was I had three weeks of vacation during the summer. I'd go back every year, cook for Elk Rock, see my family and friends... Though there aren't many of those left. My family's all gone or moved and now Keefe..."

He cleared his throat.

Then he asked, "How's Brenda doing? I need to call her."

"She's a very strong woman. But she also seems quite sad."

"She is strong. Yeah, I need to call her. What about Suzie Q?"

"Brenda has her."

"That won't do. She has a good heart, but she's not active enough. And if Suzie Q's left to her own devices... She might be okay in the summers, but too many predators come too close around the home ranch in winter."

He'd warmed up nicely, but I still eased into meatier questions — was it only because I was interviewing a chef or because I was hungry that I was thinking in food metaphors?

"Were you already working at the ranch when Wendy came?"

"That would have been my second year. Just a kid."

I wasn't going to let him extend a ten-foot pole between him and what I wanted to know about.

"But smart enough to pick up on the changes and the rivalry between Brenda and Wendy."

Still trying to back away from it, he said, "Didn't get all the nuances."

"But enough to recognize tension."

He gave into my statement. "Hard to miss. And Ulla would get talking and forget I was there." He chuckled again. This one ever so lightly flavored by rue. "Got an education sometimes. Not only about those two going after Simon — have you heard about that?"

"Yes."

"Ulla got talking about his interest in Keefe. But it wasn't like that. Simon wasn't like that. He was fascinated by Keefe. Called him a savant — I remember looking up the word after he used it — and not an idiot savant."

That word rang with recalled anger, so someone had used the phrase about Keefe.

"I was with them a lot of the time and there just wasn't any of that. Not to mention Keefe would have told me. He did tell me. Years later when he declined the advances of an older man, then after he and a woman guest... He said it wasn't unpleasant, but he didn't see what the fuss was about. That was Keefe. He certainly was not sexual with Simon.

"A while back, the ranch put together a sort of yearbook of folks who'd worked there over the years and what they were doing. Simon did real well back east in wealth management. Well enough he had his own wealth to manage. Saw him a time or two when I was chef for a restaurant in Boston. He's a nice man."

"Were there other men Wendy and Brenda wrangled over?"

He appeared struck by that question. "Hadn't thought about that, but, no. Not head-to-head, so to speak. Looking back, I don't expect either was celibate, but maybe their tastes diverged. Or they worked out a way to stay out of each other's way — you know what I mean?"

I did.

Without ever saying a word, a pair of women could agree to not let head-to-head competition happen. Out of friendship, sure. But I'd also seen it happen without a friendship at stake. More like a wise preservation of emotional resources.

I suppose the same with men.

I flashed back for a second to when Tom and Mike each expressed his attraction to me. In that case, they hadn't agreed — implicitly or otherwise — to not pursue the attraction, instead, letting time and events show how things would turn out, while treating each other with respect and friendship. Entirely mature. Sometimes it drove me nuts.

But we were well past that. Since Tom and I were to the stage of saying—

"I do." I quickly added, "Know what you mean."

I thought of Jennifer's comment about unrequited love.

"You said Keefe wasn't really interested in... relationships. But what about other people caring for him that way?"

"People care about him, sure. Feel responsible for him in a way. Brenda for sure. Wendy, too, in a way. Like she inherited him, along with the ranch, and whatever anyone might say about the rough edge of her tongue, she loves that ranch. Or even me, even though I haven't — hadn't — seen him as much as I should have, especially since I moved here."

I thought I'd lost him. Either to contemplation of the drive from Cooke City to here I'd heard about or — more likely — to regrets for not seeing his friend.

So his next words startled me slightly. "But someone wanting a romantic relationship with Keefe? I don't see it. I know there's been talk about Brenda and him. But I don't see it. I truly don't. Not now, not ever.

"Now, with Wendy it was different. Early on, there wasn't that element of childhood friendship in her feelings toward Keefe that there always was with Brenda. I could see her entertaining, uh, interest in Keefe. But when she got the ranch, it was like she put all her feelings into the ranch. Saw Keefe as an asset to the ranch, not a potential paramour any longer.

"And, in fairness, over the years, I do think a kind of friendship grew — among all of them. As much with Keefe as you could be friends."

"I've heard you called his best friend."

"I might be. I loved the guy, for sure. But there was something in him... You know how we — people — look at wildlife? Interested, respectful mostly when we see them. But we're not going out and living with them. We're not building relationships with them. We don't open ourselves to them. Well, that's how Keefe was with people."

I considered that. "And he was more like people are with each other with wildlife."

He chortled. "Except for the passions — sexual and otherwise. But, yeah, I think more of his inner life or whatever you want to call it connected to wildlife, nature, outdoors — and his dogs — than with people."

"When did you last talk to Keefe?"

"Last weekend, a couple days before he was murdered. I called — he never called me or anybody."

"What did you talk about?"

"He was waiting for the results on the DNA test he'd taken. And he was excited about something else, but he said he couldn't tell anybody anything until he had those DNA results. He said the young woman who'd gotten it for him, the one who got hurt last year — Sorry, don't remember her name. Anyway, she was getting on the company because the results were taking longer than they should have. Then he said she and her father were coming to Sherman, though he was vague on exactly when."

The something else had to be what he'd found in the museum box. But what was it?

"Did he talk about a fellow researcher, someone else interested in Oscar and Pearl Virtanen?"

"Yeah, yeah. An Irish last name. They were planning a trip to check locations on the ranch where this guy thought there might be something buried. But Keefe indicated this whatever that he was excited about that he wasn't telling anybody would make that unnecessary."

"In what way unnecessary? Like he knew the precise location? Or—?"

"Sorry. Really. You had to know Keefe. It was stunning he talked as much about it as he did. I can't give you any more on that."

As we wrapped up, I edged toward a celebrity-related question.

"Do you mind me asking why you decided to retire to Cooke City?"

He chuckled. "My earlier comment about Suzie Q not being safe at Elk Rock in winter because of predators circling closer made you think of this place, huh? It's not that bad. Not all winter. I spend a few weeks on a beach somewhere to break it up. In fact, when I first retired, I thought I'd be on one beach or another permanently. But I discovered a real drawback.

"No, give me Cooke City. In a way, its location keeps the predators from circling in too close to me. Weather's just bad enough that when someone calls and wants me to work a couple weeks in their restaurant because they're in a desperate situation, I can always say, Sorry, I'm snowed in — yes, even in May or October — and they'll believe it. It's the only way to protect being retired."

I joined in with his deep chuckle.