Stuart Woods - Santa Fe Edge

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 leaned 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.

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.”