Stuart Woods - Santa Fe Edge

He walked through the entire cottage slowly, looking at everything, but he could find nothing that seemed to belong to Teddy, except the large safe in a closet. He remembered that Holly had seen a note left there saying that the combination to the safe was T-E-D-D-Y, and he tapped it in and opened the safe. It was entirely empty. He closed the door and spun the wheel to lock it.

He picked up the phone and found it disconnected, then sat down in the comfortable chair next to it and picked up the local phone book. He turned to the yellow pages, then found a list of moving and storage companies. One of them had a small arrow inked in, pointing to its number. He called the number with his cell phone.

“Beach Moving and Storage,” a woman’s voice said.

“Hi. This is Jack Smithson. I left some things there to be shipped a couple of weeks ago, and I wondered if they’d gone out yet.”

“Let me check.” She came back a moment later. “I have nothing in your name, Mr. Smithson,” she said. “Could they be in another name?”

Todd had an idea and checked his notebook. “Try Lauren Cade,” he said.

She put him on hold for a moment, then came back on the line. “Yes, those boxes were picked up last Monday and should have been delivered to the storage company in Santa Fe yesterday.”

“May I have the name of the storage company, please? I don’t know where Lauren is having them sent.”

“They were sent to Adobe Moving and Storage on Cerrillos Road,” she said.

“To what name?”

“I assume to herself. I have no other name.”

“Thanks so much,” Todd replied, and hung up, jotting the name in his notebook. He got the number from information and was connected.

“Hi. This is Jack Smithson. I’m calling for Lauren Cade. Was her shipment delivered on time yesterday?”

“What was the name again?” the man asked.

“Lauren Cade.” He spelled it.

“No, we received nothing yesterday, the day before or today for a Lauren Cade.”

“Is it possible to check your receivables on those days again?”

“I’ve just done that in the computer. There’s nothing for a Lauren Cade.”

“Thank you,” Todd said, and broke the connection. He looked at his watch. A little late in the day to take off for Santa Fe. He left the cottage and found a motel nearby and checked in. He cranked up his laptop and did a search for fixed-base operators at Santa Fe Airport. There were three, and he called each of them and inquired, first, if a Jack Smithson had arrived there. A no from all three. Then he asked each if they had had a 182 RG arrive. Two of the three had had such arrivals, but only one, Santa Fe Jetcenter, in the time frame that interested Todd. He asked for the tail number.

Todd went to the FAA website and accessed the aircraft registration list and entered the tail number. Nothing. He typed in “Jack Smithson” and got nothing.

AS TODD WAS CHECKING the FAA database, Teddy Fay was flying his 182 RG to a small airport in Albuquerque that had a paint shop, flying at low altitude and without filing a flight plan. He landed, taxied up to the shop, got out, found the owner and introduced himself as Ralph Pearson. “I spoke to you on the phone yesterday,” he said.

“Oh, yes. You wanted your registration number changed. Have you got your paperwork?”

Teddy gave him the FAA documents he had created.

The man looked over the airplane. “It’ll take us two full days of work,” he said, “what with drying time and doing the shadowing in the contrasting color. You can pick it up in three days.”

Teddy thanked the man, then walked out to the parking lot, where Lauren was waiting for him in the used Jeep Grand Cherokee he had bought. “You can drive me back down here in three days,” he said.

They drove back to Santa Fe, to their new rental house, and Teddy went to his computer, where he entered the FAA mainframe and inserted registration for his airplane with the new tail number, giving a false name and an address in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

“I see your boxes arrived,” Teddy said. “Did you have them shipped the way I asked you to?”

“I did,” she replied. “My name appears nowhere on them.”

“Good.”

“We’re going to have to go out for dinner,” Lauren said, “since we don’t have any groceries yet. We can pick up breakfast at a convenience store on the way home.”

“Fine with me,” he said, closing the computer. “Another trip to Geronimo? We haven’t been there yet.”

“Sure, that’s fine. Shall I call?”

“Is the phone working?”

“We didn’t get phone service, remember?” she reminded him. “We’re using our cells.”

“Oh, right.”

Lauren called and made the reservations, then brought a drink to him and sat down beside him on the sofa. “What are we going to do with our days, Teddy?” she asked. “I’m used to being busy.”

“Then get busy,” Teddy replied. “Boredom is a self-inflicted wound. Get to know Santa Fe; learn to appreciate the light and the terrain; read books; TiVo the good stuff at night and watch it in the daytime. Maybe we’ll take up golf.”

“It all sounds wonderful,” Lauren replied, clinking her glass with his. “A whole new world.”

Todd Bacon landed the B-36TC Bonanza at Santa Fe Airport late in the afternoon and taxied to the Santa Fe Jetcenter, a mock-adobe building with a large ramp. An assortment of aircraft populated the place, from large corporate jets and turboprops to his own turbocharged piston Bonanza.

Todd lost no time in questioning the young woman on the desk. She checked her computer. “No, Paul Janzen, the man who flew the 182 RG, is no longer here. He turned in his rental car yesterday and flew away. He said something about selling his airplane to somebody in Texas,” she said.

“And he’s not returning?”

“Didn’t seem like it,” she said.

“Do you know if he was selling the airplane through a broker?”

“No, sir.”

“Or what town in Texas? It’s a big state.”

“Nope. I only saw him twice, the day he arrived and the day he left.”

“Was there a woman with him either time?”

She looked thoughtful. “There was a woman in here on the day he arrived, but it didn’t look like she was with him. He came in and signed the paperwork for his rental, then he went out to the ramp, got in the car and drove away.”

“Without the woman?”

“Yes. Like I said, she didn’t appear to be with him. There were several airplanes unloading that afternoon, and she could have been on any of them.”

“Can you give me a physical description of the man?”

“I guess he was in his early fifties, dark hair, going a little gray around the ears.”

“Anything else you can remember?”

“No. He was just like anybody else.”

“Do you remember what kind of car he rented?”

She went to her computer, looked it up and told him.

“Thanks,” Todd said, then got into his own rental car, took a good look at the map and drove into Santa Fe. As he got into the city it looked to him like the sort of place he’d like to live himself, and he couldn’t blame Teddy if he’d picked it. He drove to the Plaza and found La Fonda, the big old hotel that had served visitors to the town for decades. It had been nicely updated, and he was given a small suite on the top floor. He opened his bags and got out his computer, then logged on to the Agency mainframe and sent an e-mail to Holly Barker.

Checked out Vero Beach and discovered that Lauren Cade had left some boxes in storage there and that they had been shipped to Santa Fe, but the company had nothing under her name. Arrived Santa Fe an hour ago and checked for 182 RG at Santa Fe Jetcenter, but owner had turned in his rent-a-car and left yesterday. Appeared to be alone on both arrival and departure. Description by woman at the desk vague, could fit hundreds of people. Said he was going to Texas to sell his airplane, no mention of what city.