Stuart Woods - Santa Fe Dead

“That an L.A. badge?” the doorman asked.

“Yep.”

“Keeler checked out this morning.”

“Bound for where?”

“I don’t know. He and his lady friend left here in a car-service Mercedes this morning, and a couple of hours later he called and asked that their luggage be sent somewhere else. We loaded it into a van.”

“And what would be that address? Another hotel?”

“Let me check with our dispatcher,” the doorman said. He picked up a phone at the bell stand and spoke into it for a minute or so, then wrote something down in a notebook. He returned to Cupie, tore the page out of the pad and handed it to him. “That’s it, and it’s not a hotel.”

Cupie glanced at the paper, then tucked it into a pocket and handed the doorman a twenty. “Thanks for your help,” he said. The doorman put them into a cab, and ten minutes later they pulled up to the imposing entrance of a large, limestone-faced apartment building.

“There you are,” the driver said.

Cupie and Vittorio got out of the cab and stood under the building’s awning, since a light rain had begun to fall. A doorman approached.

“May I help you?” he asked, eyeing them suspiciously.

Cupie flashed his tin. “A Mr. Walter Keeler had his luggage sent to this building this morning. Is this an apartment hotel?”

“No,” the doorman said, “it’s an apartment house, and all the tenants own their apartments.”

“Does Mr. Keeler own an apartment here?”

“I think you’d better speak to the super,” the man replied. He went inside and made a phone call.

A moment later, a man in shirtsleeves came outside, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Yes?”

“Sorry to interrupt your dinner,” Cupie said, showing his badge. “Does a Mr. Walter Keeler own an apartment here?”

“Is this official business?”

“Let’s say it’s for the benefit of Mr. Keeler.”

“This is a very prestigious building,” the super said. “The management frowns on calls from the police. I’d like to cooperate, but…”

“We have no intention of disturbing the peace of your building,” Cupie said. “I just need to know if Mr. Keeler owns an apartment here.”

“Unofficially, yes,” the super replied.

“Long time?”

“Since this morning. He and a woman arrived here and met a real estate agent at nine this morning. By noon, they had bought the apartment-the penthouse-moved in and were married by a judge.”

Cupie blinked. “All in the space of three hours?”

“That’s what I’m told.”

“Told by who?”

“Various staffers. The apartment had been on the market for, maybe, forty-eight hours. It was sold furnished by the late owner’s estate. Did you want to speak with Mr. Keeler?”

“Not at this time,” Cupie said.

“That’s good, because he left late this afternoon in a rented car that was delivered here.”

“Bound for where?”

The super shrugged. “Who knows? He didn’t share his travel plans with me, but he and Mrs. Keeler took luggage.”

“Okay, thanks,” Cupie said.

The super handed Cupie a card. “This is the management company’s number. Any further information you’ll have to get from them, and you and I never talked, okay?”

“Not only that, we never met,” Cupie replied. The super returned to his dinner.

“Can I get you a cab?” the doorman asked.

“One more question: Do you know which rental car company delivered the car?”

“Hertz,” the doorman replied. “I saw the contract folder when the guy handed it to Mr. Keeler.” He blew his whistle and waved down a cab. “It was a Mercedes,” he said, opening the cab’s door.

Cupie gave him a twenty, and he and Vittorio got in. Cupie gave the driver the address of their hotel. “So,” Cupie said to Vittorio, “these two people met after a few days, they flew from Palm Springs to Hayward and bought an expensive apartment, and got married the next day. That about it so far?”

“No,” Vittorio said, speaking for the first time in an hour. “They went on a honeymoon, too, and not so far away that they’d need to fly. Where around San Francisco would they go on a honeymoon?”

Cupie thought. “Yosemite?”

“Not romantic enough. How about… what’s the name of that town down the coast, with the crashing waves?”

“Carmel? Nah, that’s a three- or four-hour drive; they’d have flown into Monterey.”

“Where could they have gone that they could drive to by dinnertime?”

“The wine country,” Cupie said. “Napa, maybe.”

“Isn’t there an airport at Napa?”

“Yeah, but why didn’t Keeler land there?”

“Because he had to buy an apartment and marry Barbara. What are the most expensive hotels in Napa?”

“We’ll have to get a guidebook,” Cupie said. “There’s a bookstore next to the hotel.”

“I want a steak,” Vittorio said.

“Me, too, but let’s get a guide to Napa first.”

EAGLE AND SUSANNAH had just finished dinner when his cell phone vibrated. “Eagle.”

“It’s Cupie. You sitting down?”

“Yes.”

“Your ex-wife has remarried.”

“What?”

“I kid you not; the girl is a fast worker. They arrived at the Four Seasons last night, and this morning Keeler bought a penthouse apartment in a top building. They were married by noon and drove away in a rented car late in the afternoon. My best guess is that they’re honeymooning in the wine country to the north. You want me to track them down there or wait for them to return here? I don’t think she’s going to bother you for a few days, at least.”

“No, Cupie, go home and find a way to keep tabs on Keeler from there-the FBO where he parks his airplane, somebody in the apartment building, whatever works. If they fly away from Hayward, I want to know.”

“Right. We’ll stay the night here, since we’ve already checked into a hotel, and fly home tomorrow.”

“Tell him I’m coming home,” Vittorio said.

“And Vittorio’s coming back to Santa Fe.”

“Send me a bill, Cupie. Good night.” He hung up and turned to Susannah. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said.

BARBARA/ELLIE and Walter Keeler sat in the sunshine in the walled courtyard of Tre Vigne, a lovely Italian restaurant in the Napa Valley, and lunched on fruit, bread and cheese. Barbara felt two things: one, that her recovery from prison had been complete and spectacular, and two, that she had gotten more than lucky in meeting Walter Keeler. The man was an amazing list of all the things every woman wanted in a man: handsome, rich, sensitive, funny, warm and sexy. She wondered why she didn’t love him.

She had felt the same way about Ed Eagle at first: that she ought to love him. She wondered, not for the first time, if there was something missing in her psychological makeup. She dismissed the idea, because she really had loved one man, her second husband. Of course, he had killed her first husband during the robbery of his diamond business and had sent her to prison with his testimony in the case. And him, she had loved!

Barbara knew she didn’t have a conscience; they had told her that during psychological counseling in prison. But that didn’t trouble her in the least. It allowed her to think only of herself and not feel bad about it. She knew that when Walter had outlived his usefulness she would dump him without a second thought, and that if he gave her a hard time about it, she would find a way to make him permanently sorry.

But for right now, Walter would do very nicely. He would feed, clothe and shelter her handsomely, introduce her to people and buy her anything she wanted. He was like a walking credit card with social entree and no charge limit. She smiled warmly at him.