by Stuart Woods
“I’d heard that this Mrs. Keeler had rented it in the past couple of days, and it’s important I get in touch with her on a business matter. Some papers have to be signed.”
“I’d know if it had been rented,” Dolly said, “and it hasn’t. In fact, I spoke to the woman in New York this morning, and she told me they had taken it off the rental market.”
“Are you alone here, ma’am?”
“No, the main house is occupied,” she said. “Is there anything else?”
“I wonder if I could use your telephone?”
“I haven’t had it turned on yet,” she said, “and cell phones don’t work out here. Good night.” She made to close the door, but he stuck a hand through. “Here’s my card,” he said. “I’d appreciate it if you would give me a call, if someone turns up in the house.”
“Sure,” Dolly said. She took the card, closed the door, locked it and turned off the porch light.
Barbara edged into the room. “Everything all right?”
“Shhh,” Dolly said, waving her back. “They haven’t gone yet. I can still see their flashlights.”
A minute passed and she heard car doors slam, then the car’s headlights came on and it turned around and went back the way it had come. “Okay,” Dolly called out. “The coast is clear.”
Barbara came back into the living room. “That was scary,” she said.
“The guy at the door wasn’t very scary, but he had a friend, and he was.”
“Did they give you a name?” Barbara asked.
“They gave me a card,” Dolly responded, handing it to her.
“Oh, I know these guys,” she said. “My ex had them tailing me in San Francisco.”
“They asked for you by name,” Dolly said, “but don’t worry, I told them the house hadn’t been rented to anyone and that the owners had taken it off the rental market.”
“Oh, thank you, Dolly,” Barbara said, kissing her on the cheek. “Now I won’t have to move.”
Dolly hugged her. “I know you’re going to be happy here, Ellie,” she said.
“I think I will be,” Barbara replied, returning the hug.
19
Barbara awoke to the sound of her cell phone vibrating on the bedside table. Dolly was still asleep, naked, in the bed beside her, so she took the phone into the living room before she answered.
“Yes?”
“It’s Jimmy,” he said.
“Hi. It’s a little early, isn’t it?”
“I’m on Pacific time. Isn’t it later there?”
She ignored the probe. “You’re back from Santa Fe, then?”
“Yes, I got back last evening, after watching a couple of days’ shooting. I just wanted to reassure myself that my writer/director knows what he’s doing. He does.”
“That’s good.”
“Something I thought you should know: Yesterday I was followed by those two private detectives that were watching my house in L.A. when Eagle was looking for you. I think he must know you’re out and probably coming to Santa Fe. I wouldn’t go there if I were you.”
“That’s good advice, Jimmy. Thanks for letting me know about the two men. I’ll watch myself.”
“You might be better off holing up here with me,” Long said. “I’ll take good care of you.”
“Thanks. I might take you up on that at some point, but I’m okay where I am for the moment.”
“Whatever you say,” he replied. “Take care of yourself, wherever you are.”
“Thanks, baby. I will. Oh, Jimmy…”
“Yes?”
“You remember you said that our pilot on the flight back from Mexico did a lot of odd jobs for you?”
“Yes, he has in the past.”
“Do you think he might do a little odd job for me?”
“Do I want to know what kind of odd job?” he asked.
“No, but you’d better find out if he’s squeamish.”
“Ooookay,” Long said. “I’ll have a chat with him. Can I reach you at the same number?”
“Yes,” she said. “Soon, please.” She closed the phone.
“Ellie?” Dolly called from the bedroom.
“I’m here,” she said, walking back there to get her clothes.
“Come back to bed,” Dolly said alluringly.
“Thanks, but I’ve got things to do today,” Barbara replied. “Don’t you have to go to work?”
“Eventually. Tip always goes to the practice range early and doesn’t get back until midmorning. I’ll be at my desk by then. What are you going to do about those two men who came last night?”
“I’m going to keep my lights off in the evening and keep my garage door closed.”
“You’re welcome to sleep here,” Dolly said.
Barbara knelt on the bed and kissed her on a nipple, then on the lips. “That’s comforting to know,” she said, then got dressed and went back to her own house.
VITTORIO RAPPED SHARPLY on the guest-bedroom door. “Wake up, Cupie! Time to get going. There’s coffee on.”
“Be there in a couple of minutes,” Cupie called back.
Vittorio went back to the kitchen, toasted a muffin and was eating when Cupie wandered in, dressed but still looking sleepy. “Morning. Kind of early, isn’t it?”
“We’ve got things to do,” Vittorio said.
“What have we got to do?”
“I want to take another look at that guesthouse in daylight.”
“Wouldn’t afternoon daylight be as good as dawn daylight?” Cupie asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee.
“If Barbara slept there last night, maybe she’s up and around now.”
“The house was empty, Vittorio, and the neighbor confirmed it.”
“I thought the neighbor was hostile to our inquiry,” Vittorio said.
“We were two strange men at her door-one of us very strange-and after dark. What did you expect, to be invited in for a drink?”
“Maybe you’re right,” Vittorio said, “but then again, maybe not. You ready?”
“Okay, okay,” Cupie said, getting to his feet. “You got a to-go cup?”
“Take the one in your hand,” Vittorio said.
VITTORIO STOPPED THE SUV at the top of the hill above the house. He could see only a little of the guesthouse, most of it hidden by cottonwood trees. He started down the hill, then put the gearshift in neutral and let it coast down the road, braking to keep his speed from increasing.
BARBARA, SITTING IN HER kitchen over coffee, heard a brake squeal. Quickly, she put her dishes in the sink, then took her coffee mug into the bedroom, first checking that her toothbrush had been put away in the medicine cabinet. She stepped into her bedroom closet and slid the slatted door closed behind her, then stood quietly, sipping her coffee.
Shortly, she heard car doors closing and the rattle of the main gate as someone climbed over it. Then there was the crunch of shoes on gravel. The doorbell rang twice, then she heard them walking around the house. Finally, the footsteps retreated, and she heard the car doors slam. The car started and drove away.
She waited another two minutes before she came out of the closet.
“I THINK she’s back in L.A.,” Cupie said.
“Barbara should be here,” Vittorio responded, “and she fits the description of the woman who rented the guesthouse.”
“Just because somebody rented it doesn’t mean that she’s going to move in right away.”
“Possibly.”
“You’re like a dog with a bone,” Cupie said. “If she was here, maybe she flew back to L.A. with Long. We didn’t see him board the airplane. Maybe she was there waiting for him.”
“Cupie, have you forgotten what a determined, goal-oriented person Barbara is?”
“No, I haven’t forgotten.”
“I think you have. She wants Eagle dead, so she has to come to where Eagle is. I think she already has.”
“If she has, I think she went back to L.A. with Long.”
“It’s no
t like her to backtrack from her goal,” Vittorio said. “Not like her at all.”
“I don’t disagree with that, Vittorio, but people do unpredictable things sometimes.”
“I’m not going to L.A.,” Vittorio said. “You want to go, you go, but here is where the action is going to be, and this is where I’m staying.”
“Okay,” Cupie said. “We’ll stay here, but what are we going to do next?”
“Since we don’t know where she is,” Vittorio said, “we should stick with Eagle.”
“He won’t like being tailed,” Cupie pointed out.
“Then he shouldn’t know,” Vittorio said.
20
Ed Eagle was back at his law office, having had enough of watching the sausage that was film made ever so slowly. He had some phone calls to return and some correspondence to dictate, and he was at it when his secretary buzzed him.
“Yes?”
“District Attorney Roberto Martínez for you on line one. You in?”
“I’ll get it,” Eagle said. He pressed the button. “Hello, Bob?”
“Morning, Ed,” Martínez said. “I thought you had gone into the film business. You back earning an honest living again?”
“Yep. I discovered that the film business can get along without me. I spent two days at that studio and couldn’t think of a single suggestion to make. You wouldn’t believe how long it takes them to get a scene in the can.”
“No, and I don’t want to hear about it,” Martínez said, “unless there are some very beautiful women in that movie.”
“Only two: One of them is sleeping with the director, and the other is sleeping with me.”
“Rats. Listen, can you use some good news?”
“Always.”
“The crime lab called me this morning with some new information that casts a new light on the Constance Hanks case.”
“You have my undivided attention,” Eagle said.
“A technician found two lipstick smears on the pillow on which Mrs. Hanks’s head rested when found.”
“Did they belong to Mrs. Hanks?”
“One of them did,” Martínez said.
“Aaaaah,” Eagle said. “And the other?”
“The technician at the scene took samples of all of the lipsticks belonging to Mrs. Hanks-the ones in the medicine cabinet and her dressing table, and the second smear didn’t match any of them. A detective interviewed the Hanks’ housekeeper on the day of the murder, and she told him she’d changed the bed linens the day before, so the unidentified smear was made within twenty-four hours of Mrs. Hanks’s death.”
“Any DNA mixed in with the lipstick?”
“You’d think, but I’m afraid not.”
“Pity.”
“Yes, it is, but I think you can consider your client cleared of this murder.”
“That’s great news, Bob. I’ll pass it on to him. Let me know when you find your female suspect, will you? I’m curious to know who it is.”
“Will do. See you around, Ed.” Martínez hung up.
Eagle looked up Tip Hanks’s phone number and dialed it.
DOLLY WAS IN THE bathroom off Tip’s study, peeing, when she heard the phone ring. She decided not to disturb herself, to let the machine get it.
After three rings, the machine answered. “This is Tip Hanks. Please leave your number and the date of your call, and I’ll return your call when I get back.”
There was a beep, and another, deeper voice spoke. “Tip, it’s Ed Eagle. I just had a call from the district attorney, telling me that you have been cleared as a suspect in Connie’s murder. This is great news, and I congratulate you. Take care of yourself. Oh, the reason you were cleared is that a crime scene technician found two smears of lipstick on Connie’s pillow-one hers, one belonging to another person. It matched none of Connie’s, so it appears that the unknown chief suspect is a woman. Go figure.” Eagle hung up the phone.
“Shit!” Dolly said aloud. She stood there thinking for a moment, then opened Tip’s center desk drawer. There was a handheld recorder there, and she opened it and removed the tape. She took the tape from the telephone answering machine, inserted it into the dictator and turned it on. The message played, but she stopped it after Eagle had said, “Take care of yourself.” Then she held down the record button and let the tape run for thirty seconds, recording silence over the last part of Eagle’s message. She returned the tape to the answering machine and reinserted the second tape into the recorder and returned it to the desk drawer.
Dolly went back to her desk, where she had left her handbag, and found two lipsticks in it. She took a tissue from a box and wiped all the lipstick from her lips, then picked up a tube, cranked the whole stick out of its holder and broke it off into the tissue. She went back to the bathroom and flushed the tissue and lipstick down the toilet, and watched to see that they cleared the bowl. She then went back to her desk and applied the other lipstick to her lips and returned it to her purse. Finally, she walked through the house and the kitchen and out to where the garbage cans were kept in a small wooden shed. She opened the top and unwound the wire closure from the top of one bag, dropped in the old lipstick case, and reclosed the bag. Finally, she went back into the house.
She was working at her computer when Tip returned to the house a few minutes later.
“Good morning,” he said, stopping at her door.
She gave him a broad smile. “Good morning. How did practice go?”
“Really well,” Tip replied. “I worked on shaping my drives, and I’m getting really good at it.”
“Gonna hit around those doglegs, huh?” she asked.
“You said it. Anything going on here?”
“Nope. Oh, you had a phone message when I was in the powder room. I haven’t played it back.”
Tip went into his study and pressed the play button, and Ed Eagle’s deep voice filled the room, giving him the news: He was no longer a suspect. “Take care of yourself,” Eagle said, and the message ended. Tip reset the machine, then went back to Dolly’s office.
“The call was from Ed Eagle,” he said. “I’m off the hook on Connie’s murder, no longer a suspect.”
Dolly grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “Oh, Tip, that’s wonderful news! I’m so happy for you.”
“Thanks, Dolly,” he said. “Uh… there’s something else.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“I wonder if… I mean, it’s pretty soon after Connie’s death, but would you like to have dinner sometime?”
“Oh, I’d love to,” Dolly replied with enthusiasm. “But I think you’re right: We probably shouldn’t be seen socializing in Santa Fe so soon. Tell you what: Why don’t I cook dinner for you some night soon? I’m a very good cook.”
“I’d like that a lot,” Tip said, “and I’ll look forward to it.” He kissed her on top of the head and went back into his study.
Dolly went happily back to her work, thinking of what she would cook for their first dinner together. Something good but not great-she’d want to top it at a later dinner.
21
Todd Bacon landed his Agency-furnished Beech Bonanza at Vero Beach Airport and taxied to parking at Sun Aviation. He left a credit card number for his fuel and asked the woman behind the desk, “A friend of mine named Jack Smithson is in town and he keeps his airplane here. It’s a Cessna 182 RG. I wonder if you have a phone number for him?”
The woman checked her computer and gave him a number. “Jack left here a couple of weeks ago and hasn’t returned,” she said. “I don’t know what his intentions are.”
“Thanks,” Todd said. “I’ll call and leave him a message.” He rented a car and, using the onboard GPS, drove to the last known address for Teddy Fay. He parked his car next to the cottage and looked inside. It was nicely furnished and clean, but there was no sign of an occupant. Todd looked around, then picked the lock on the front door and let himself in.
He walked through the entire cottage slowly, looking at everyt
hing, but he could find nothing that seemed to belong to Teddy, except the large safe in a closet. He remembered that Holly had seen a note left there saying that the combination to the safe was T-E-D-D-Y, and he tapped it in and opened the safe. It was entirely empty. He closed the door and spun the wheel to lock it.
He picked up the phone and found it disconnected, then sat down in the comfortable chair next to it and picked up the local phone book. He turned to the yellow pages, then found a list of moving and storage companies. One of them had a small arrow inked in, pointing to its number. He called the number with his cell phone.
“Beach Moving and Storage,” a woman’s voice said.
“Hi. This is Jack Smithson. I left some things there to be shipped a couple of weeks ago, and I wondered if they’d gone out yet.”
“Let me check.” She came back a moment later. “I have nothing in your name, Mr. Smithson,” she said. “Could they be in another name?”
Todd had an idea and checked his notebook. “Try Lauren Cade,” he said.
She put him on hold for a moment, then came back on the line. “Yes, those boxes were picked up last Monday and should have been delivered to the storage company in Santa Fe yesterday.”
“May I have the name of the storage company, please? I don’t know where Lauren is having them sent.”
“They were sent to Adobe Moving and Storage on Cerrillos Road,” she said.
“To what name?”
“I assume to herself. I have no other name.”
“Thanks so much,” Todd replied, and hung up, jotting the name in his notebook. He got the number from information and was connected.
“Hi. This is Jack Smithson. I’m calling for Lauren Cade. Was her shipment delivered on time yesterday?”
“What was the name again?” the man asked.
“Lauren Cade.” He spelled it.
“No, we received nothing yesterday, the day before or today for a Lauren Cade.”
“Is it possible to check your receivables on those days again?”
“I’ve just done that in the computer. There’s nothing for a Lauren Cade.”