Sutu Vure (KPC2009) Mystery Cache

My name is Langford, Private Eye. Yeah, I've always wanted to be able to say that, and now I finally can. I used to work in IT, but with the poor economy having left me without a job and my childhood fascination with Magnum, P.I. calling, I finally decided good old Lorenzo Langford had the free time to try his hand at something new and interesting. Well, it's different at least. I can't say it's been all that interesting so far. Around here, it seems to be wives suspicious of their hard-working husbands who really are just working hard because the economy's so sour that they have to do what they can to keep their jobs.

So, I was rather surprised this morning to look up to see a sexy blonde with shoulder-length hair, dressed in a tight black dress, revealing tantalizing legs that standing silently in front of me. I hoped that I hadn't been dozing off too long. Her legs were so dazzling that I hoped I wasn't still dozing off.

"Good morning, ma'am, how can I be of service?" I managed to stutter.

"It's Miss, and I'd like to hire you."

"Yes, okay, miss uh..."

"I have some clues to the disappearance of Sutu Vure. Have you heard of Sutu Vure?"

"Sutu Vure? The evil mastermind who briefly cornered the travel bug market in 2002?" That was the extent of my knowledge about him, but I wasn't about to reveal my ignorance if I didn't have to.

"The one and the same."

She dropped her two clues, in the form of an old boot and a worn hat, onto my desk. Sadly, the two items seemed to fit well with the other objects on my desk, and in fact with the decor of my whole office. Business hasn't really been that good yet.

"What do you expect me to do with these, I'm not a bloodhound!," I was about to blurt, but she had leaned over the desk planted her face onto my lips and made me completely forget about those legs of hers. By the time my senses returned, she was gone, vanished as effortlessly as she had seemingly appeared. I moved to take the two items to throw them into the wastebasket, but I noticed that an envelope had appeared on top of them. It was marked "Retainer" and inside I found a pleasing number of green twenties.

"Might as well give the lady what she paid for," I mumbled to myself, noticing that there was no address or other information on the envelope anyway, and I sat back down to examine the two seemingly insignificant clothing items in front of me.

Choose Hat or Boot

Special notes about the 2009 Puzzle Challenge
To be considered for Fastest Solver points, you must verify your solution with certitude. Because certitude may not properly account for joint solutions, please email me team member names in the case of team solutions to ensure proper point accounting. All "point" scoring is arbitrary anyway, subject to change, at the discretion of the cache owner, and mostly meaningless (unless you really want to be awarded a certain bottle of wine at the December event). The real challenge is just to see whether you can solve all of these caches by the end of the year. To maintain fairness, hints should not be offered by the cache owner or other solvers until the fifteenth of the month.
2009 Puzzle Challenge Solvers
2009 Puzzle Challenge Finders
2009 Puzzle Challenge Event

Special notes about this cache:
All names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this story are fictitious. Although actual places are used, none of the events or characters are intended to be related to real businesses or people nor should such be inferred. Neither is any recommendation for or against any of the businesses or organizations mentioned intended, and none should be inferred.
I started this puzzle years ago, but constructed it incorrectly and only now have finally gotten around to replacing the cache and updating the story to fit. Please feel free to let me know about any coding irregularities that you find. I did not have enough time to test this new site as thoroughly as I wanted to.
The cache is only available during the day. There may be poison oak in the area; so I wouldn't recommend romping around in this area at night anyway. The container is listed as a small, but the log is contained in a 35mm film canister. Hopefully, it survives the March rains. Bring your own writing instrument. The terrain is mostly 2.0, except for the last two or three feet.

You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.