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“Oh, you too, eh? So sorry to hear it. Though I’ve had a jump in business a hundredfold. I’ll be right there. I just picked some up from the ski lodge and impounded them,” Ollie West said.
“Great. Thanks.”
Shortly thereafter, Ollie drove up with his tow truck, wearing his trademark red-and-white tow truck shirt and blue jeans and work boots. When he was working on cars, he wore his green-and-white auto-body shirt. Red-haired and red-bearded and with bright green eyes, he was a character. He’d sweet-talk a car into doing anything for him, and everyone trusted him to take care of their vehicles as if the cars and trucks were his own family members’.
Ollie had Kayla sign a release of the car, and then he towed it off for her. She brushed her hands together, as if washing her hands of one more task that had to be done, and then got back in Roxie’s car and they returned to the lodge.
“That was easy,” Roxie said. “I can’t wait to see what you’ll get this time.”
“Something bright red.”
Roxie smiled. “I guess you’re not too upset about it.”
Kayla sighed. “I’d be lying if I said I was. It guzzled gas and gave me fits half the time. I’ll be glad to get a replacement, though seeing it so damagedwas upsetting. Like you, I was just glad I wasn’t in it at the time.”
When they arrived at the lodge, Roxie went to see where she was needed.
The phone began ringing, and Kayla answered it in the office. “This is Kayla Wolff at the Timberline Ski Lodge. How may I help you?”
“I need to speak to a manager,” a man with a gruff voice said.
“You’re speaking to her.”
“I left my keys in a room at your lodge. I need to pick them up.” He was very authoritative as iftheyhad made the mistake of keeping his keys.
“Uh, sure. If you have some ID, you can come in and do that anytime. Which room was it?”
“I don’t remember the room number.”
“Okay. Your name?”
“Durham Manning.”
“Can you describe what was on the key chain?”
“A car key, house key, safe deposit box key.”
“Anything else?”
“Might be. I can’t think right now. I just need to get my keys.”
Kayla thought that was strange. She knew exactly what she had hanging off her key ring. And why wouldn’t he have mentioned he had two safe deposit keys on the key ring, not just one? “Can you describe the key ring?”
“Silver.”
Why wouldn’t he mention a skull dangled from it too? “Okay, it’ll be here. Just ask for me, Kayla, or one of the other managers when you get in.”
“All right.” He hung up on her.
Kayla left the office to speak with Blake. “Hey, a guy by the name of Durham Manning says that he’s coming in for those keys we found in the guest room safe, but I don’t have a good feeling about this guy. He didn’t tell me that there was a smaller key that looked like a mailbox one ortwosafe deposit keys on the ring, and he couldn’t say what else was on it. He said it was silver, but you know how often key rings are silver. And he didn’t mention the skull hanging from the key ring, which is pretty noticeable as far as helping identify them as his own. He didn’t say the keys were in the safe either. You’d think he’d mention that first in case we hadn’t looked in there and found them but also to help further identify them. And he didn’t know what his room number was.”
“Okay, well, if he drives here, we can see if the key belongs to the car he’s driving. If it’s a duplicate key. If not, we need to make sure they’re his keys. Have we had any success at locating the person who stayed in the room?” Blake asked.
“Not yet. I’ll check with Nate. I figured I’d give him a chance to look into it first. But if we have the possible owner of the keys coming in, we don’t have a lot of time.”
“I’d go with your wolf instincts, and we’ll have to do everything we can to verify they’re his before we hand them over,” Blake said.
“Right.” Kayla called Nate next and told him what was up. “I suspect you haven’t learned anything about the man who registered for the room and left his keys in the safe.”
