by Stuart Woods
“Wow,” Martínez said. “I’d certainly call that motive.”
“His alibi holds. I spoke to the manager of the Hassler Hotel in Rome, and he supports both Wells’s contention that he was in Rome when his wife died and that he received the phone call from his Santa Fe house when he said he did.”
“So, he would have had to hire somebody. Any candidates?”
“My best guess is somebody he worked with in the movies, either in L.A. or Santa Fe. He’s shot a couple of movies here. I’ve compiled a list of people who worked for him from the credits of his pictures. On the theory that anyone he knew well enough to ask to kill his wife would have worked for him more than once, I’ve come up with a list of thirty-one names of people who worked on two or more of his movies, and I’m running them through the New Mexico, California and federal databases for criminal records. I should have something by tomorrow that will give me the basis for interviews.”
“That’s good work, Alex. What if none of them pans out?”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”
“Okay, let me know who in that list of thirty-one people looks good.”
“I’m likely to have to go to L.A. to question some of these people, so I’ll send you a travel authorization.”
“How long will you need there?”
“Probably no more than a week, but Wells isn’t going to be a flight risk. He’s going to sit tight and let the legal process work to get his wife’s will probated, which could take months.”
“Right. There’s something else I’d like you to look into, Alex.”
“What’s that?”
“Wells told us in his deposition that Mrs. Wells’s first husband was killed in a mugging in New York.”
“That’s right, he did.”
“I’d like to know if there’s any chance Wells had a hand in that. Call the NYPD and see if you can track down the detectives who investigated the killings and see if you can figure out where Wells was when it happened.”
“That’s a good idea, Bob; I’ll get on it.”
“Don’t talk to Wells about it just yet. If he was involved, I want him to think he skated on that one.”
“I won’t talk to Wells again until I’ve come to you first.”
“Good. I don’t want Ed Eagle to know how interested we are in his client, either.”
“Yeah, it’s interesting that when Wells got the kidnapping threat, he didn’t call the police but called a lawyer, instead.”
“Yeah, I find that very, very interesting.”
26
JOE WILEN, after a night of little sleep, arrived at his office and found a message from his contact at the state police. He returned the call.
“Good morning, Mr. Wilen,” the colonel said.
“Good morning, Colonel. Do you have any news for me?”
“Yes, the dental records you sent us match the teeth of the corpse carrying Walter Keeler’s driver’s license.”
“Would you send me the coroner’s report and a death certificate?”
“Of course, I’ll do it right away. My condolences on the loss of your friend. We’ll be releasing the names of the deceased today.”
“By the way, Colonel, did anything in the car survive the fire? Any papers or other contents of Walter’s pockets?”
“No, the fire consumed the car and its contents entirely. The only reason the driver’s license fragment survived was that Mr. Keeler was thrown clear of the car.”
“Thank you, Colonel, and thank you very much for your assistance in this matter. I wonder if I could ask your help on another matter?”
“Anything I can do, Mr. Wilen.”
“I’m going to fax you a letter concerning Mrs. Keeler. I’d be grateful if you could ascertain or refute the assertions made in the letter.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“This must be held in the strictest confidence, Colonel, as you will see, and I’d like you to destroy the letter afterward.”
“As you wish.”
Wilen thanked him, faxed the letter, then called his secretary. “Margie, please get Lee Hight and the two of you come into my office.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lee Hight was the associate who had drafted Walter Keeler’s will, and Margie had proofed it on her computer. The two women knocked and entered Wilen’s office.
“Please sit down,” Wilen said. “Lee, Margie, I have some bad news: Walter Keeler was killed in an automobile accident on the way to San Francisco after our meeting here yesterday.”
The two women looked shocked.
“I’m very sorry, Joe,” Lee said.
“So am I, Mr. Wilen,” Margie echoed.
“I’ve asked you in here, because I have to make an important decision, and before I do, I want to get your opinion. First, I want to read you a letter from a Santa Fe attorney named Ed Eagle. Mr. Eagle gave me the letter a few days ago, when I was in Santa Fe, and asked me to deliver it to Walter. He did not tell me the contents of the letter, only that it concerned the woman Walter married last week. I assumed that the contents were unfavorable to her, because Eagle asked me to deliver the letter to Walter before he signed his will.
“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 s
traw 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?”