Stuart Woods: Santa Fe Edge

“Right. Long gave it up that he drove to LAX, and that Barbara might look up the Holroyds in Los Alamos, and this morning we drove up there and confirmed that a car like hers is parked at their guesthouse.”

“So, she’s in Los Alamos?”

“A few miles the other side,” Vittorio said. “What we need to know now is what you want to do about her. We can call the police, but the problem is, she’s not currently wanted for anything in this country. We could tell the Burbank cops that she killed Bart Cross, but there’s only the aircraft logbook to tie her to him at all, and we have no evidence that she hired Cross to kill you.”

“I see the problem,” Eagle said. “She’ll be wanted in Mexico for breaking prison, I assume.”

“There’s a problem there, too,” Cupie said, “because nobody seems to know she’s out of prison except the warden and a cop I know in Tijuana, who got the warden to tell him.”

“How could nobody know about a prison break?” Eagle asked.

“We believe that the warden had been screwing Barbara, or vice versa, and that she probably found an opportunity to get out through his office or his attached apartment, and that when he found her gone, he simply didn’t tell anybody. When you think about it, the only way she could be proved missing would be for the government to send some people down there and count noses. But that hasn’t happened.”

“So, getting her arrested in Mexico, the way we did before, isn’t an option?”

“Not really. And she entered the country legally, at Yuma, so right now nobody can lay a hand on her.”

“So, I’m supposed to sit around and wait for her to try to kill me again?”

Cupie and Vittorio exchanged a meaningful glance.

“What?” Eagle asked.

“The next step is entirely up to you, Ed,” Cupie said.

Eagle looked at them both. “You have a recommendation?”

“No,” Cupie said. “We don’t, and I think we should be careful what we discuss.”

Eagle gazed out the window at the landscape for a long moment. “I’m going to have to think about this and talk with Susannah about it.”

“I wouldn’t do that, Ed,” Cupie said.

Eagle looked up a number in his address book. “Hang on,” he said to Cupie and Vittorio. “I need to make a call to a guy I went to law school with, who works in the State Department now.”

Eagle dialed the number, a direct line that was picked up by a secretary.

“Mr. Abbott’s office,” she said.

“This is Ed Eagle speaking. I’m an old friend of Mr. Abbott’s, and I’d like to speak to him, please.”

“One moment, Mr. Eagle,” the woman said. “I’ll see if I can locate him.” Eagle pressed the speaker button so the two P.I.s could hear.

“Ed?”

“Bob, how are you?”

“I’m very well, and you?”

“I’m well and getting better.” He told Abbott about the attack on him.

“Wow,” Abbott said. “I guess the practice of criminal law is more dangerous than I thought.”

“In this case, Bob, the danger is in whom you choose to marry.

This is the third attempt on my life, and my ex-wife was behind all three.”

“Didn’t I read something about her being arrested in Mexico?”

“Yes, and she was sent to prison there, but she escaped.”

“Is there some way I can help, Ed?”

“I hope there is, Bob. I have reason to believe that the warden of the prison from which she escaped has not reported that fact to his superiors, so there is no police search on for her.”

“How could that happen?”

“My assumption is he just kept her on his books, and nobody outside the prison knows she’s gone. What I need is for somebody from the Mexican Ministry of Justice to go there and demand to see Barbara Eagle. When they learn she’s gone, she’ll officially be wanted.”

“Do you have any idea where she is now?”

“Two private investigators I’ve employed tell me she’s at the home of some people she knows, near Los Alamos.”

“Why don’t you call the New Mexico State Police?”

“Because she’s not wanted for any crime in the U.S. If the Mexican government makes a request for extradition, then she can be arrested here and sent back. It’ll take time, but she’ll at least be in jail while we’re waiting. Right now, we’re pretty sure she’s plotting another attempt on my life.”

“Ed, this is the worst thing I’ve ever heard. I have a solid contact in the Mexican foreign ministry, and he will certainly know someone at Justice. I’ll call him and see if we can get an investigation going.”

“Thank you, Bob,” Eagle said. “You can understand that time is of the essence.”

“Certainly, Ed. I’ll get back to you when I know something.”

“Thank you so much, Bob.” Eagle hung up and turned to Cupie and Vittorio. “All right, we’re moving on that front. Now I suggest, Cupie, that you call whoever you can in L.A. and see if you can get them to issue an arrest warrant for Barbara. I know we’re light on evidence, but I’d like her off the street.”

“So would we, Ed,” Cupie said. “I’ll get right on it.”

“You can use the phone in the living room,” Eagle said.

Cupie went into the living room, dialed the number in Burbank and asked for Dave Santiago.

“Detective Santiago.”

“Dave, it’s Cupie Dalton. I’m going to give you an opportunity to turn that lunch I owe you into a dinner, with a very expensive bottle of wine.”

“You have my attention, Cupie.”

“I know who killed Bart Cross.”

“Are you going to share that name with me?”

“It’s two names. Got a pencil?”

“Always.”

“Her name is Barbara Eagle, and she also uses the name Eleanor Keeler.”

“Wait a minute,” Santiago said. “Isn’t that the woman who was tried and acquitted of the murder of some Mafioso at the Hotel Bel-Air?”

“One and the same.”

“And she was married to that guy, Keeler, the electronics zillionaire, who drove his car into a gasoline tanker?”

“It sounds as though you’ve been introduced to the lady.”

“No, but I read the tabloids like everybody else. Tell me why you think she killed Cross.”

“Evidence that she knew him is in the airplane logbook you’re already in possession of. The next-to-last page in the logbook.”

“Wait a minute,” Santiago said. He came back a moment later. “Okay, I’ve got it: a flight from Acapulco to Yuma?”

“That’s it. That’s proof that she knew him. The guy she was traveling with is James Long.”

“Movie producer?”

“Righto.”

“Motive?”

“She hired Cross to kill my client, Ed Eagle, and he very nearly got it done, cut the man’s throat. When Barbara heard Eagle was still alive, she killed Cross and burned her bridges.”

“Is Long involved in this?”

“I can’t prove that he knew she was going to kill Cross, but he certainly introduced the two, and he told me that he kicked her out of his house when he heard about the murder. Cross worked for him out at Centurion.”

“What can you prove?”

“I’m afraid that’s up to you and your guys, pal, but trust me, she’s your perp.”

“Any idea where she is?”

“As a matter of fact I do. Long told me she knows some people in Los Alamos, and my partner and I tracked her there this morning, saw her car parked at their guesthouse. Their name is Holroyd.” Cupie gave him the address.

“Cupie, I’ve been through the murder book, and we don’t have anything that can place anybody in that house on the night Cross was killed.”

“Well, you know somebody was there, Dave.”