by Stuart Woods
The judge spoke up. “Hand them to me,” he said. He read all four pages carefully. “I understand that the chairman of Mr. Keeler’s foundation is here with her attorney.”
A lawyer stood up. “I represent the foundation, judge.”
“Have you read these four pages?” the judge asked.
“Yes, Judge, both the chairman and I have read them.”
“Do you have an opinion as to the veracity of this witness’s testimony?”
“Judge, we believe her testimony is accurate, and although accepting it reduces drastically the amount due to the foundation, we feel we must accept it.”
“Is there any other person in the courtroom who has any objections to raise or wishes to contradict this lady’s testimony?”
There was silence in the courtroom.
“In that case I rule in favor of Mrs. Keeler and order that the original pages be restored to the will, and that it receive expedited probate. Mr. Waters, do you have any requests?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Waters said. “We request that the executor immediately transfer the sum of one hundred million dollars, or securities in that value, and that she be given the free use of Mr. Keeler’s airplane and its hangar, and that bills for the support and fuel of the airplane be paid by the executor until the will is probated and all the funds dispersed.” Waters held up a document. “I have prepared an order to that effect.”
“So ruled,” the judge said. “Give me the order.” He signed two copies and gave one to the executor and one to Waters. “This court is adjourned.”
BARBARA HAD TO SIT DOWN, and she had to work very hard not to pee in her pants.
Waters sat down beside her and handed her the court order. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m very well, thank you. I just need a moment.”
“Take your time.”
The executor walked over and introduced himself. “Mrs. Keeler, if you will give me a voided check on your bank account, I will transfer the funds in cash immediately.”
Barbara ripped out a check, wrote “VOID” across it and handed it to the man.
“And as soon as I get back to the office I’ll fax a letter to the FBO ordering that you control the airplane and that bills are to come to me, until the estate is settled.”
“Thank you so much,” Barbara said, giving him a winning smile.
51
Half an hour passed before Barbara could collect herself enough to allow Ralph Waters to walk her out of the courthouse and put her into a cab.
As Waters held the door for her, she grabbed him and gave him a huge, wet kiss. “Send me a big bill,” she said, “and on top of that, I owe you the best blow job of your life.”
She got into the cab, and the stunned lawyer mustered enough control to close the door and wave her off.
Barbara gave the driver the address of her apartment building, but as they were driving toward home, she saw an important sign hanging in front of a plate-glass window. “Stop!” she said, and the cab skidded to a halt before the premises.
“What’s the matter, ma’am?” the driver asked, alarmed.
Barbara handed him a hundred-dollar bill. “Absolutely nothing,” she replied, opening the door and getting out. “Have a wonderful life!” She opened the door to the business and walked inside.
A distinguished-looking, middle-aged gentleman, clad in a double-breasted blue blazer with brass buttons, approached her with a welcoming smile. “Good morning, madam,” he said smoothly in a mid-Atlantic accent. “How …”
“That is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” Barbara said, interrupting and pointing. “Exactly what is it?”
“That,” the gentleman said, “is the brand-new Bentley Mulsanne, and this is the first of its kind to reach the San Francisco market. By the way, my name is Charles Grosvenor,” he said, handing her an engraved and embossed card.
“How do you do? I am Mrs. Walter Keeler. I don’t suppose this one is for sale,” Barbara said.
“Actually, it was a special order by a regular customer, but we received word only this morning that he has suffered a serious illness and will be unable to complete the sale.”
“How very sad,” Barbara said, looking through a window at the gorgeous interior. “I’ll take it.”
“This example is in Aspen green with an interior of saffron and green leather, and trim of burled English walnut.”
“I’ll take it,” Barbara said.
“It has a twin-turbocharged, twelve-cylinder engine rated at six hundred horsepower.”
“I’ll take it,” Barbara said.
“The base price of the car is two hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars, but this particular Mulsanne is equipped with every option available for the car, bringing the total price to three hundred and forty-five thousand dollars, plus sales tax of nine-point-five percent, making a total of three hundred seventy-seven thousand, seven hundred and seventy-five dollars.”
Barbara sat down at the salesman’s desk and withdrew her checkbook from her purse. “To whom would you like the check made?” she asked.
“Bentley of San Francisco,” Grosvenor replied.
Barbara wrote the check, ripped it out and handed it to the man. “I’m going to need a driver,” she said.
“We will be pleased to supply you with a uniformed chauffeur until such time as you are able to hire your own person,” he replied. “May we arrange automobile insurance for you? We recommend Chubb.”
“That’s fine. They insure my apartment. My address and phone number are on the check. Tell them to add the car to my policy.”
“Do you require a personalized number plate?”
“Yes. Make it KEELER.”
He wrote down the name. “We will be happy to make that application for you. Will you excuse me for a very few minutes while I have the ownership paperwork prepared for your signature?”
“Of course,” Barbara said, walking over to the car, opening the driver’s door, seating herself inside and closing the door with a satisfying thud. The man was calling her bank, of course.
She explored the car’s interior, opening the glove box and the center console, running her fingers over the leather and walnut. She adjusted the seat and steering wheel, switched on the ignition and tried to figure out the radio. Soon she had a soft flow of lovely classical music playing through hidden speakers.
Ahead of her along the showroom wall a door opened and a small man in a sharply cut black suit with a peaked cap under his arm emerged and walked toward the car and stopped outside the open driver’s window.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Keeler,” he said in a cockney accent. “My name is Stanley Willard, and I have been assigned as your driver.”
“What do you like to be called?” Barbara asked.
“Willard is the usual term of address,” he replied. “No title is necessary.”
“Willard it will be,” Barbara said.
“May I give you a tour of the car’s controls?” Willard asked.
“Thank you. Yes.”
Willard walked around the car and got into the front passenger seat, and for the next ten minutes he took her carefully through each control and showed her how to operate the many systems that displayed on the car’s navigation screen.
As they completed the tour Charles Grosvenor entered the showroom with a file folder under his arm and escorted Barbara back to his desk. “Ownership requires a few signatures,” he said. “You will receive a temporary dealer’s tag and registration. Your vanity plate and permanent registration will be mailed to your home address.”
Barbara signed all the papers, and Grosvenor tucked them into a heavy cream-colored envelope embossed with the Bentley logo and handed it to her. “Is there anything else I may do for you, Mrs. Keeler?”
“Yes, there is,” Barbara replied. “I would like to buy Stanley Willard.”
Grosvenor smiled. “Willard is a free agent, Mrs. Keeler, and you may negotiate directly with him.” He lea
ned in closer and lowered his voice. “You may like to know that he is currently paid five hundred dollars a week.”
Barbara stood up and offered him her hand. “Thank you, Mr. Grosvenor, for handling this transaction with such dispatch.”
“It has been my very great pleasure, Mrs. Keeler, and I hope that I may continue to be of service. Please call me at any time for any reason.”
“Are you married, Mr. Grosvenor?” she asked.
“I was widowed two years ago,” he replied.
“Would you like to have dinner this evening?”
“How very kind of you, Mrs. Keeler. I would be delighted to join you.”
“Drinks at my home at seven, followed by dinner at Boulevard? I’ll send Willard for you.”
“Perfect. Willard knows my address.”
“Now, how do we get the car through the plate-glass window?” Barbara asked.
Grosvenor pressed a button on the wall next to him, and the window rose like a garage door. “There we are.”
“I’ll drive, Willard,” Barbara said, sliding into the car and adjusting her skirt. “You ride shotgun.”
“You may put the ignition key in your purse, if you wish,” Grosvenor said. “The starter button will operate any time you’re in the car, and the doors will lock or unlock as you arrive or leave.”
Barbara settled into the seat, pressed the start button and was greeted with a sound like a distant Ferrari. She put the car in gear, drove across the sidewalk and turned toward home.
“Willard,” she said, “I’d like you to come to work for me. How’s seven hundred and fifty dollars a week, paid vacation and medical insurance sound?”
“I am delighted to accept, Mrs. Keeler,” Willard replied, fastening his seat belt as Barbara rounded a corner with a roar and squealing of tires.
52
Lieutenant Dave Santiago pulled up to the Beverly Hills address, stopped at the curb and switched off the engine. “Jeff, let’s get something straight before we go in there,” he said to the FBI agent, Jeff Borden, in the passenger seat.
“What’s that, Dave?”
“This is my investigation, and I take the lead in the questioning. Got it?”
“In our book,” Borden said, “a murder in the United States takes precedence over a prison escape in Mexico.”
“Good.”
“Dave, I don’t have to tell you how thin the ice is that you’re skating on, do I? I mean, given the lack of direct evidence against Barbara Eagle in the murder of Bart Cross, you may have to settle for letting us send her back to Mexico. At least she’ll be off the streets of L.A.”
“I understand that, Jeff, but this guy is our best shot for hanging the homicide on her, if I can turn him. I’m going to be the good cop here—then, if it looks like I’m not getting anywhere, I’ll defer to you, and you can explain his other liabilities to him, okay?”
“Okay. I’m good with that,” Borden replied.
As they opened their car doors a big BMW swung into the driveway and stopped. James Long unfolded himself from the car and started up the walk toward the front door.
“James Long?” Santiago called.
Long stopped and looked at the two men in suits, their jackets unbuttoned, a badge showing on the belt of the one who had spoken to him.
“Yes?”
“I am Detective David Santiago, and this is Special Agent Jeff Borden of the FBI. We’d like to speak to you, please. May we go inside?”
“Sure,” Long said. He unlocked the front door and set his briefcase on a table in the foyer, then led them into the living room and waved them to seats. “Would you like a drink?”
“On duty, I’m afraid,” Santiago said, “but thanks for the thought.”
“Mind if I have one?”
“Certainly not,” Santiago replied. He didn’t mind questioning a man who was drinking.
Long walked to a bar built into a bookcase, poured himself a shot of something, downed it, then put ice into his glass and poured another, then returned to where the two sat and took a chair. “What can I do for you?” he asked, taking a tug at his drink.
He was trying to look calm, Santiago thought, but he wasn’t making it. “My department is investigating the murder of your former employee, Barton Cross.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear it. I was very upset when I heard of Bart’s death. He was a good man.”
“I’m sure he was, Mr. Long. Specifically, I want to talk to you about your relationship with Barbara Eagle.”
“Okay,” Long said. “What would you like to know?”
Mistake, Santiago thought. He should have asked how Barbara Eagle was related to the death of Cross. “When did you last see Mrs. Eagle?”
“About a week ago,” he said. “She stayed here for a couple of days, and then I drove her to the airport.”
“To LAX?”
“That’s right.”
“Where was she going?”
“She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask,” Long replied. A light film of sweat had appeared on his forehead.
“That seems odd, Mr. Long. You drive an old friend to the airport, and there’s no conversation about where she’s going?”
“Well, Barbara is kind of odd about her privacy,” Long said, seeming to grope for an answer.
Santiago took his notebook from his shirt pocket, opened it to a blank page and stared at it for a moment. “Let’s see,” he said, “the day you drove her to the airport was the, what, twenty-eighth?”
“That sounds about right,” Long said.
“What time of day?”
“Afternoon, I believe. I had just come home from work, and she said she had to leave.”
“That would be the day after Mr. Cross was shot in the head in his living room, wouldn’t it?” Santiago asked.
“I don’t see the connection,” Long said, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand and taking another pull from his drink.
“Well, Mr. Long, we know that Barbara shot Bart Cross. The question now is how much help you gave her.”
“Help?” Long asked, wiping sweat from his upper lip.
Santiago glanced at his notebook again. “For a start, you introduced Barbara to Bart, didn’t you.” It was not a question. “In Acapulco, it’s says here. That’s so, isn’t it.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m connected to anything.”
“It means that Barbara is connected to Bart, and you made the connection,” Santiago said, careful to sound reasonable, to keep accusation out of his voice. “And you’re right, there’s nothing wrong with introducing two people. You and Bart dropped her off at Yuma International, didn’t you? I’m just trying to get the sequence of events established.”
“Well, yes, and I didn’t see her for a couple of weeks after that.”
“She asked you how to get in touch with Bart, didn’t she?” Santiago asked. “I mean, you were her only connection to him, weren’t you? Seems logical that she would ask you for his number.”
“She may have,” Long replied, wrinkling his brow as if trying to remember.
“So, here’s how it went after that, Mr. Long,” Santiago said. “She hired Bart to kill Ed Eagle, and he did his best, but Eagle survived the attack. Barbara killed him so he couldn’t connect her to the attempt.”
“Look here,” Long said. “Do I need a lawyer?”
“You’re certainly entitled to a lawyer, Mr. Long. I’d be happy to explain your rights in detail, if you wish. Whether you need a lawyer is another matter.”
“I have a law degree,” Long said, pulling himself upright in his chair. “I don’t need to have my rights explained to me.”
“Duly noted,” Santiago said, scribbling something in his notebook. “Do you need a lawyer, Mr. Long?”
Long stared at him. The booze was obviously taking effect now, and his thinking must be affected.
“Mr. Long,” Santiago said gently, “I’m not after you. I know you didn’t kill Bart Cross, just as I know that Barbara
did. What you have to decide now is how much you want your future to be affected by what Barbara has done. Surely you know that this is not the first time she has hired a killer. There was a fellow named Jack Cato, who also worked for you from time to time as a stuntman. She hired him to kill a lawyer in Palo Alto, remember?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Long said emphatically.
“Mr. Long,” Santiago said slowly. “If you cooperate with my investigation now, answer questions freely and agree to repeat your answers in court, I don’t see why you should be placed in jeopardy for what Barbara has done. You’re not a target of my investigation now, but from here on in, the story could change, depending on your truthfulness. Do you understand?”
Long stared into his drink. “I think I want a lawyer,” he said.
“If you make that a formal request, then this questioning will end right here,” Santiago said, “but I need to explain to you that a lawyer will instruct you not to answer any other questions about your relationship to Barbara and her decision to kill Bart. He will advise you to stand on your rights under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, but frankly, that would be a very big mistake. Don’t you think so, Jeff?”
Borden took his cue and leaned forward in his chair. “I should tell you, Mr. Long, that in Mexico, you may not have the same rights as you do in the United States. We now know that Barbara Eagle escaped from a Mexican prison and met you in Acapulco—perhaps you even drove her there—and that you assisted her in entering the United States.”
“She has a passport. She had a right to enter the country.”
“But the Mexicans are going to say that you abetted her escape from prison and in fleeing the country. And on this side of the border, well, Homeland Security will have to get involved, and frankly, I don’t think you’re going to have time to produce movies while you’re trying to stay out of prison in two countries.”
Long was breathing harder now.
“I should tell you, too, that the Mexican Ministry of Justice has requested the extradition of Barbara Eagle to Mexico, and the attorney general of the United States has agreed to extradite her, and a federal judge has issued a warrant for her arrest.”