“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 Lopez 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?”
“
“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.”
