by Stuart Woods
“I gave Walter the letter, but he declined to read it. He walked over to my shredder and fed the unopened letter into it. At that point I called the two of you and Helen Brock in here to witness the will. I haven’t asked Helen to join us. Lee, when you were drafting the document, did Helen see any of it?”
“No, Joe, she didn’t.”
“So only the three of us know the contents of the will.”
The two women nodded.
“Here is the letter from Ed Eagle.” Wilen read the entire letter to the two women.
The two women sat in stunned silence for a moment. “That’s appalling,” Lee said finally.
“Now, here’s my question to both of you. You were both well acquainted with Walter Keeler. Do you think that, if he had been in possession of this information about his wife, he would have signed his will in its present form?”
“No,” Margie said. “Of course not.”
“Not unless he was out of his mind,” Lee said.
“I knew him better than either of you, and I entirely agree. If I had known the contents of the letter from Eagle, I would have insisted that Walter read it before signing, but I didn’t. Eagle faxed me the letter yesterday, after I told him of Walter’s death.”
“Joe,” Lee said, “I want to remind you that Walter’s will, after all his other bequests, leaves his wife more than a billion dollars in liquid assets.”
“Thank you, Lee, but I don’t need reminding. Now, the three of us have to make a decision together, and it has to be a unanimous decision. I warn you now that what I am talking about here is nothing less than a criminal conspiracy, a felony punishable by years in prison. I am considering altering the terms of Walter’s will by replacing two pages of it with new pages which will accomplish two things: one, I will set up a trust that will pay Mrs. Keeler fifty thousand dollars a month for life, contingent on her noncriminal behavior, and give her possession for life, but not ownership, of the San Francisco apartment, which Walter paid seven million dollars for. Two, it will reduce to one dollar the inheritance of any beneficiary, including Mrs. Keeler, who contests the terms of the will or who complains about it to the press.
“Walter’s copy of the will was destroyed in a fire that accompanied the accident, so the original on my desk is the only copy. I am proposing to forge Walter’s initials on these two pages with my pen-the same pen that Walter signed with-and substitute the two new pages for the old pages leaving Mrs. Keeler that huge inheritance. I believe that she will accept the will, especially when she learns what I know about her past. Do you both understand what I want to do?”
“Yes,” both women said simultaneously.
“If I do this, you will substitute a new computer file on both your computers, so that everything matches. Lee, do you still have my notes for drafting the will?”
“No, after you approved my draft, I shredded them.”
“Now, I have to ask each of you what your wishes are in this matter. Please remember that I am suggesting that you become part of a conspiracy to deny Mrs. Keeler the fortune she is legally entitled to and that her husband wanted her to have. If you agree to join me in this conspiracy, you can never tell another soul what I’ve done, and if you are ever deposed, or if you testify in court about this matter, you will have to perjure yourselves to protect yourselves. Do you understand what I am asking of you?”
“Yes,” both women said.
“If either of you feels, for any reason, that you should not do this, I will shred the new pages of the will and have it probated as it stands, and we can all forget that this conversation ever took place. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” both women said.
“What do you wish to do? Margie?”
“Put the new pages in the will.”
“Lee? This is a particularly important decision for you, because should the conspiracy ever become known, you would lose your law license and your livelihood.”
“I have two questions, Joe,” Lee said.
“Go ahead.”
"First, if this money does not go to Mrs. Keeler, to whom will it go?”
“Under the terms in my redraft, it will be put into a charitable trust already mandated in the will.”
“And two, will Mrs. Keeler have any part in managing the estate?”
“No, she will not. I will remain the executor of the will and Walter’s trustee, and after the estate is probated, I will have as little contact as possible with Mrs. Keeler. This law firm will manage the charitable trust, and a large part of our work here will have to do with that.”
“Then I am happy to take part in denying the bitch the money,” Lee said. “Where do I sign?”
“You don’t have to sign,” Wilen said. “You can both leave now, and I will personally alter the will. Last chance to change your minds.”
Both women shook their heads.
Wilen handed them each a computer disk. “Please copy this onto your computers, replacing the old file, and erase the backup files.”
The two women accepted the disks and left Wilen’s office.
Wilen carefully initialed the two pages and inserted them into the will. He shredded the old pages, then went to his secretary and handed her the will.
“Margie, will you make a copy of Walter Keeler’s will for Mrs. Keeler and file the original in the office vault?”
“Of course, Mr. Wilen. I’ll have the copy for you in just a moment.” She walked to the copying machine, placed the document on top and pressed a button. A moment later, she handed Wilen the copy.
“Thank you, Margie.”
Wilen took the copy into his office and sat down. He held a hand out in front of him. It was perfectly steady. He had never done anything like this in his life, but he would have done anything to protect Walter Keeler’s interests, in death as well as in life.
27
DETECTIVE ALEX REESE checked into his Los Angeles hotel, then drove his rented car to Centurion Studios. The guard at the main gate confirmed his appointment, then put a studio pass on the dashboard of his car and gave him directions to the security office.
Reese parked in a visitor’s spot, walked into the building and presented himself to the secretary of the head of security. “I’m Detective Alex Reese of the Santa Fe Police Department; I have an appointment with your head of security.”
“Of course,” she replied, then pressed the intercom button. “Mr. Bender, Detective Reese is here.” She hung up the phone. “Please go in, Detective.” She pointed at the door.
The door opened, and a man in his shirtsleeves waved him in and stuck out his hand. “I’m Jeff Bender, Detective; please come in and have a seat.”
Reese took a seat on a leather sofa, and Bender sat down in a facing chair. “What can I do for the Santa Fe P.D.?”
“Mr. Bender…”
“Jeff, please.”
“And I’m Alex. Jeff, I’m investigating the murder in Santa Fe of Mrs. Donald Wells and her son, Eric.”
“Yes, I know about that; it’s been big in the L.A. papers. I assume that, since you’re here, Don Wells is a suspect?”
“We have no evidence against him, but he is, of course, a person of interest.”
“Yeah, I understand that she was very, very rich. Always a good motive for the husband. I was a homicide cop on the Beverly Hills force; I know how it goes.”
“May I speak to you in confidence about this?”
“Of course.”
“My working theory of the case is that, since Mr. Wells was in Rome at the time, he could have hired someone to kill his wife, and that, if he did so, he might have hired someone who worked for him in the movie business.”
“Reasonable assumption,” Bender said. “Have you found anything to back it up?”
“That’s why I’m here. Another assumption is that such a person would be someone who Wells knows well and trusts, so he or she would probably be someone who has worked for him on several pictures.”
“Wells has produced
only eight or ten pictures,” Bender said, “so it wouldn’t be hard to narrow the list.”
“I’ve already done that,” Reese said. “From a list of thirty-one people who’ve worked as crew on more than one of Wells’s pictures, I’ve found six who have arrest records, and I’d like to discuss them with you.”
“Who are they?”
Reese ripped out a page of his notebook and handed it to Bender.
“Five men, one woman,” he said, reading the names.
“Do you know them?”
“Only one of them: Jack Cato, a stuntman. I think one of the other guys, Grif Edwards, is a stuntman, too. I know him when I see him. What kind of records do they have?”
Reese consulted a sheet of paper. “Cato has had a number of arrests for disorderly conduct or assault over the past seven years. He seems to have a tendency to get into bar fights.”
“Yeah, I’ve had to bail him out a couple of times, once in L.A., once on location in Arizona.”
“And Edwards stole a couple of cars when he was in his early twenties, got probation, which he served without incident, then he took a baseball bat to his brother-in-law after the man beat up his sister. That was two years ago.”
“What about the records of the others?”
“The three other men had arrests for domestic abuse, either with a girlfriend or a wife. The woman apparently ran with a Hispanic gang for a couple of years and had a shoplifting conviction. Nothing for the last four years, so maybe she straightened out her life.”
Bender went to his desk and began typing on his computer. “Four years is how long she’s had her job. Tina López started as an assistant seamstress and is now a seamstress in the costume department. She seems an unlikely candidate, though she might know someone from her gang past who would do the job. However, it’s unlikely that Wells would have had much contact with her, since she’s pretty far down the pecking order from a producer, especially one with his own company.
“Cato has worked at Centurion as a stuntman and wrangler for twelve years and Edwards for nine. Edwards’s specialty is car work: chases, crashes. Former stock-car racer. The other three guys are in makeup, accounting and catering-like the woman, pretty far removed from Wells. I wouldn’t think they would make good suspects.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to Cato and Edwards first. How do I find them?”
Bender did some more computer work. “They’re both full-time employees: Cato at what we call the ranch, where animals are kept, out on the back lot; Edwards at the motor pool. When he’s not doing stunt work, he’s a mechanic. Neither is working on a film right now. Why don’t I go along with you, lend a little studio authority to the interviews?”
“I’d appreciate that,” Reese said.
Bender got his coat and put on a western straw hat. “Keeps the sun off my fair skin,” he said. “A day in the sun means a trip to the dermatologist.” He led the way outside, and they got into a golf cart. “It’s how we travel on the lot,” he said.
Reese had a good look at the studio as they drove down a long avenue with big hangar-like buildings on both sides.
“These are the soundstages, where interiors are filmed,” Bender said. He stopped at an intersection and pointed. “Down there is the New York street set, which is the most-used standing set on the lot.” He began driving again. “The studio commissary is over there, and down the side streets are the office buildings where the independent producers, like Wells, rent space. There are also bungalows that are dressing rooms for our stars.”
He swung the cart into a large shedlike building and stopped. It looked like the workshop of an auto dealer, only larger. There were a number of hydraulic hoists, and along the rear of the building were two rows of parked vehicles with covers over them. “The cars back there are period stuff, everything from Packards to delivery vans to a fire truck.”
A man in coveralls approached the golf cart. “Hey, Jeff,” he said to Bender. “What can I do for you?”
“Hi, Ted. This is Alex Reese; we’d like to talk to Grif Edwards. He around?”
Ted pointed. “He’s working on the car on the lift, last on the left.”
Bender drove down to the lift and stopped. A man in coveralls was using a grease gun on what looked like a late-forties Ford. “Grif Edwards?” Bender called out.
The man turned and looked at Bender. “Who wants to know?”
28
CUPIE DALTON SAT in front of his computer, looking at the Air Aware program. He picked up the phone and dialed a number.
"Ed Eagle.”
“Hi. It’s Cupie.”
“Hello, Cupie.”
“Walter Keeler’s airplane has made a move but only from Hayward to San Jose, a short hop.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore, Cupie; Walter Keeler is dead.” Cupie’s jaw dropped. “She offed him already?”
“Apparently not. Keeler was killed in a collision with a gasoline tanker truck on the freeway while Barbara was in San Francisco.”
“Holy shit. I hope he hadn’t made a new will.”
“I hope so, too, but it’s possible. His lawyer wouldn’t say. I gave him a letter for Keeler, but he didn’t read it, so I had to fax the lawyer a copy.”
“A letter about Barbara?”
“All about Barbara.”
“So what’s next?”
“My guess is that Barbara is going to be stuck in San Francisco for a few days at least, while she buries her husband and reads his will.”
“You know what I think? I think a very rich Barbara would be more dangerous than ever.”
“Yes, in my experience, the very rich tend to feel omnipotent, and an omnipotent Barbara is not a good thought.”
“You have any instructions for me?”
“Yes. Bribe somebody in her building to keep an eye on her and let you know if she leaves town.”
“I can do that; I got acquainted with the super on our last visit.”
“Apart from that, just sit tight. I may have some work for you in L.A. soon. I’ve got a new client who might get charged with murder. His name is Donald Wells, and somebody killed his very rich wife and her son while he was in Rome. I think the cops and the D.A. like him for it. Wells is a movie producer based on the Centurion lot.”
“I know the head of security at Centurion, Jeff Bender. You want me to pay him a visit?”
“Maybe you should. I would like to know as early in the game as possible if the Santa Fe police are investigating Wells.”
“I’ll give him a call.”
“Okay. And keep me posted on Barbara’s whereabouts.”
“Will do.”
GRIF EDWARDS LOOKED like a central-casting hoodlum out of a Warner Brothers noir movie-big, heavyset, broken nose, blue stubble-just the sort of guy who would beat up Bogart in act 1 and take a slug in the last scene.
“I’m Jeff Bender, studio security,” Bender said. “This is Alex Reese, out of Santa Fe P.D. He’d like to ask you a few questions, and I’d like to hear your answers.”
Edwards looked back and forth at the two men, then shrugged. “Okay.”
“Mr. Edwards, where were you last weekend, Friday through Sunday?”
“I went down to Tijuana, to a bullfight,” Edwards replied.
“What day was the bullfight?”
“Saturday and Sunday.”
“Who was fighting?”
“I don’t know. Some spic guys.”
“Anybody get hurt?”
“Naw, I was hoping, but they all walked away. The bulls didn’t do so good.”
“What else did you do in Tijuana?”
“Drank some tequila, ate some tacos, got the runs.”
“Who did you go with?”
“Buddy of mine.”
“What’s his name?”
“Jack Cato. He works on the back lot.”
“Anybody else?”
“Just the two of us. We drove down in my car.”
“Where’d you stay?”
&n
bsp; “Some dump not far from the bullring.”
“Its name?”
“Beats me. Some spic name.”
“How many nights?”
“Friday and Saturday. We drove back Sunday, after the fight.”
“You know a producer on the lot called Don Wells?”
“Sure, I worked three or four of his pictures. We’re not exactly buddies, though.”
“Ever see him socially? Have a drink or something?”
“Naw.”
“Thanks for your time, Mr. Edwards.”
Bender turned the golf cart around and headed out.
“I saw a rack of time cards near the door,” Reese said. “I’d like to see what time Edwards clocked out last Friday.”
“Okay.” Bender stopped the cart, went to the rack and found Edwards’s card, then he got back into the car. “Five eleven.”
Reese wrote down the time.
“Now let’s go see Jack Cato, and see if they’ve got their stories straight,” Bender said.
The buildings were left behind them, and Reese found himself driving down the dirt street of a western town. They passed the saloon, the jail and the general store and came to a building with the fading words LIVERY STABLE painted in large letters on the side. Next to it was a corral with half a dozen horses in it.
“Here we are,” Bender said. “This is both a set and a real stable.” He led the way through the big doors to a small office inside.
A tall, wiry man in jeans and a work shirt looked up from a desk, where he had a hand of solitaire dealt out. “Hey Jeff,” he said, standing up and offering his hand. His leathery skin and narrow eyes were right out of a B western. “What can I do you for?”
“Hi, Jack. This is Alex Reese, Santa Fe P.D. He’d like to ask you some questions.”
“Questions? About what?”
“Just tell him what he wants to know, okay? It’s lunchtime, and I’m hungry.”
“Hell, all right.”
