Nobody’s Hero (Ben Koenig #2)

Chapter 6

The rib eyes were as big as a bible and twice as bloody. Finely marbled and dry-aged, they’d been pan-seared by a chef who knew how to cook meat. The two men had ordered them rare. It didn’t look as if they knew each other, just happened to be seated together as the restaurant had a single-diner policy on Saturday nights. Single diners sat at the grill, or they didn’t sit at all. The ma?tre d’ lined them up like they were playing blackjack and the grill chef was the dealer. That they were sitting next to each other seemed like happenstance. A random encounter.

One of the men had grey hair, buzz-cut short, and a chiselled jaw. Strong arms and calloused hands. If you didn’t know him, you might think he worked a physical job. And as they were in Coos County, Oregon, maybe he was in agriculture or timber. He was called Hank Reynolds, and if you thought he was in agriculture or timber, you’d be wrong. Hank had an indoor job.

The other man was his physical opposite. He was small and neat and fussy and pale. He looked like he might be an accountant or an auditor. A job that kept him out of the midday sun. One of those jobs that no one at school dreamed about doing. The fussy man’s name was Stillwell Hobbs, and if you thought he was a cube dweller, you’d be wrong about that too.

Dead wrong.

The rib eyes came with a side of white asparagus and a scoop of mashed potato, loaded with butter and cream. All the steaks came with asparagus and mashed potato. The only choice was whether you wanted a fried egg on it or not. It didn’t cost extra and almost everyone said yes. It felt like you were getting something for free. Reynolds had said yes to the egg. He asked for it over easy but got what everyone did – sunny-side up. The chef didn’t have time to flip eggs. Hobbs said no to the free egg. Seemed like he couldn’t even look at it. Reynolds figured his dining companion must have an allergy. He’d heard about egg allergies. They sounded like a pain in the ass.

‘Don’t like eggs, huh?’ he asked.

‘Not a fan, no,’ Hobbs replied.

Reynolds cut into the rich yellow yolk and spread it over his steak. Hobbs looked away.

‘Allergy?’

‘Something like that,’ Hobbs said, his gaze fixed on something in the distance.

‘Too bad,’ Reynolds said. ‘Eggs are in a whole bunch of stuff.’

‘Yes, they are.’

‘Name’s Hank Reynolds.’

‘Stillwell Hobbs.’

‘Pleased to meet you.’

They shook hands.

‘Damn shame about the eggs, Stillwell,’ Reynolds said. ‘I was about to ask if you’d join me in a whiskey sour. Heard this place does the best in the northwest.’

‘They do, Hank,’ Hobbs said. ‘And I’m fine with egg whites, it’s the yolks I have a problem with.’

‘Let’s do it,’ Reynolds said. He held up his hand and caught the attention of a young server. ‘Two whiskey sours for me and my friend, ma’am,’ he said.

‘Sure,’ the server said. She had random tattoos on her arms, like she’d been playing paintball while wearing a sleeveless top, and a lumpy birthmark on the side of her face. It was in the shape of Italy. ‘I guess you guys won’t want to see the wine list?’

‘Just the whiskey sour for me,’ Reynolds said.

‘Same,’ Hobbs added.

‘Can you pass me your wineglass, sir?’ the server said to Reynolds. ‘Save me reaching across you.’

Reynolds did as he was asked, and the server walked off to place their order at the bar.

‘Apart from great steaks, what brings you to Coos County, Hank?’ Hobbs asked.

‘Work,’ Reynolds replied.

‘And looking like you do, it must be agriculture or fishing?’

Reynolds shook his head. ‘Boring government job. But every now and then I’m allowed out of the office. I get to make sure everyone’s doing what they’re supposed to be doing. What about you, Stillwell?’

Hobbs paused. ‘I guess I’m a problem solver.’

‘And what problems do you solve?’ Reynolds said, spearing an asparagus tip with the end of his fork.

‘Whatever needs solving.’

‘Sounds interesting.’

‘It has its moments.’

After five minutes their whiskey sours arrived, and the two men settled into an easy conversation. It was as if they’d known each other for years.

The server’s name was Harper Nash, and she knew exactly who both men were. Stillwell Hobbs was her father, and Hank Reynolds was the problem they’d been hired to solve. She’d taken a server’s job at the restaurant a fortnight earlier and her references were impeccable. They were also completely fabricated. That didn’t matter, though. By the time anyone in the restaurant’s HR department thought to check, she’d have handed in her notice and disappeared.

She held Reynolds’s wineglass by its stem and placed it into a paper bag. She told her shift supervisor she was going on her break, then left the restaurant through the kitchen. Two minutes later she was in the lobby of the Gobblers Knob Hotel. It was the same hotel Reynolds was staying in. No one gave her a second look. She was a guest there as well. If anyone wondered how someone on a server’s salary could afford to live in a hotel, they didn’t ask. Harper was one of those people who fitted in.

‘Yo, Harper,’ the concierge shouted. ‘You heading over to Sally’s later?’

Sally’s was the local bar. Its patrons called it a dive bar, although it was in a good neighbourhood and didn’t feel edgy like the best dive bars did. Harper had made herself a regular as it was where the bellboys and maids and concierges hung out after work.

‘Maybe later,’ Harper said. ‘But I’m kinda beat tonight. Just going to head to my room and get some stuff.’

Which was what Harper did. She went to her room and she got her stuff. She was on the same floor as Reynolds, and her stuff included a camera, a portable laser printer, an acetate sheet, a tube of wood glue and a laptop.

She’d gotten a maid drunk at Sally’s the night before and cloned her key card while she was throwing up in the bathroom. She used her clone to slip inside Reynolds’s room. The floor’s CCTV had been working, but at 9 p.m. it went down. It would stay down until the following day. Harper turned on the lights and examined Reynolds’s wineglass. She had three prints to choose from. She selected the thumb. She thought the thumb was the most likely. She took a dozen photographs, selected the best one, and Bluetoothed it to her laptop. She opened an image-editing app and created a negative of the photograph. She sent this to the laser printer and printed it onto the acetate sheet. This created a 3D structure of the negative. She cut off the tip of the wood-glue tube and spread a thin layer across the print. She took the acetate sheet to the bathroom, rested it on the heated towel rail, and waited for it to dry. She checked her watch. She figured her dad would have convinced Reynolds to order a dessert by now. After fifteen minutes she peeled off the slim thumbprint copy. It was an unsophisticated hack, but more than enough to unlock Reynolds’s laptop. His government files had additional layers of security, but Harper had no interest in them. She opened a fresh Word document and began typing. It took her two minutes. She proofread it, then proofread it again. It was correct.

She rechecked her watch. It was time to leave.

But before she did, she had one last job. Maybe the most important job. She walked over to the fruit bowl and put the banana in her bag. She couldn’t leave that there.

That wouldn’t do at all.

Thirty minutes after leaving for her break, she was back on the restaurant floor. Hank Reynolds was just leaving.

Hank Reynolds stepped inside his hotel room. He rubbed his eyes and rolled his shoulders. He felt like he should go for a stroll. Walk off the meat and the liquor. Funny that Stillwell was allergic to egg yolks but could handle egg whites. He hadn’t heard of that before. Come to think of it, he hadn’t said he was allergic to eggs. He’d said, ‘Something like that.’ What the hell did that mean? The more Reynolds thought about it, the more he realised there was something a little off with Stillwell Hobbs. Talking to him was like watching a movie where the audio was slightly out of sync. Shouldn’t spoil your enjoyment, but it did anyway. Reynolds didn’t have an ego, but when someone tells you they have a government job, it’s normal to ask what that job is. But Stillwell hadn’t cared.

Reynolds sat at the room desk. ‘Stillwell Hobbs’ was an unusual name. Maybe he was on a database somewhere. He lifted the laptop lid and pressed his thumb against the scanner. Reynolds stared at the screen in confusion. It should have opened on the desktop. A photo of his wife, his two-year-old daughter and his labradoodle, Monty. The photo he’d taken on their trip to Montana. But instead of grinning faces and a panting dog, there was an open Word document. Reynolds rarely used Word. He communicated by email, departmental intranet or Teams. He reached into his inside pocket for his reading glasses.

He read the first line out loud. ‘“I’ve been living a lie . . .”’ He blinked in surprise. ‘What the hell?’

Which was when the cord from the dressing gown, the thick white towelling one that hung from the back of the bathroom door, was slipped around his neck. Stillwell Hobbs was too experienced a killer to pull the cord back. For sure it would have been easier to murder Reynolds that way, but he was staging a suicide, and even a first-year pathologist knew the difference between a hanging and a ligature strangulation. The wounds were different. Pulling back would leave a horizontal furrow on the neck. Instead, Hobbs yanked the cord up. Made sure the wound followed the underside of the jaw, all the way up to the ears. Reynolds scrambled back but only succeeded in falling off his chair. Hobbs had counted on that. Reynolds was now only being held up by the cord around his neck. As if he had hanged himself from a door handle.

Which was exactly where the maid found him twelve hours later.

Hanging from his bathroom door.