Stuart Woods: Santa Fe Edge

“He’s in control inside the prison. If I’m gone he can cover it up, at least for a while, but if his superiors know I’m out, all hell will break loose.”

“Granted.”

“And then there’s his wife,” Barbara said, smiling. “Word is, he’s more frightened of her and her father than of his bosses. She comes home tomorrow morning. If he’s smart, and he is, in a kind of reptilian-brain way, he’ll cover it up.”

“How about the money you stole from him?”

“I’d bet anything she knows nothing about it. It’s graft-bribes he’s taken over time. There was sixty-one thousand dollars and about twenty in pesos.”

“So, only you and Alvarez know about that.”

“Right, but if they catch me, everyone will know. Jimmy, we have to get out of here tomorrow morning, first thing. Call your pilot.”

Jimmy got out his cell phone. “Hello, Bart? Jim Long. I want to fly back to L.A. tomorrow morning.”

“No,” Barbara said, tugging at his sleeve.

“We have to stop somewhere on the way to L.A. What’s an out-of-the-way airport?”

Jimmy shrugged. “How about Yuma?” he said to Barbara.

“Perfect. Tell him to file for there, then he can drop me and take you back to Santa Monica.”

Jimmy passed on the request and hung up. “Bart’s good with that,” he said.

“How well do you know him?”

“Very well. He’s worked on nearly all of my films as a stunt pilot, and ferrying around cast and crew. He can do just about anything, and I put money in his pocket all the time.”

“Good, then he won’t ask too many questions about me.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Tell him I live in Yuma, and my husband doesn’t know I’ve been in Mexico.”

“Okay.”

“Does he fly to Mexico a lot?”

“All the time.”

“Good. You can give him Alvarez’s pesos.”

The following morning they drove to the Acapulco Airport and onto the ramp, stopping next to the Beech Baron and depositing their luggage with Bart, who seemed to think nothing of taking on an unexpected passenger and dropping her in Yuma.

They took off and climbed to twelve thousand feet, and headed northeast. Barbara opened her suitcase and went through all her ID-credit cards, driver’s license and passport, all genuine, all in the name of Eleanor Keeler. Her last husband had been Walter Keeler, who had died in a car crash. She had been left a tightly controlled legacy and suspected Walter’s lawyer of having screwed her out of anything more. He had, no doubt, cut off payments when she had been convicted in Mexico, but she still had a fund of several hundred thousand dollars in a San Francisco bank. It would take some doing, but she would get her hands on that.

The airplane landed at Yuma later in the day, and Barbara handed the pilot her passport. “For some reason, they didn’t give me an entry stamp when I crossed the border,” she said.

“When did you cross?”

“Three days ago. I flew private into Acapulco.”

“It’ll probably be okay,” he said.

She and Jimmy waited next to the airplane. She was nervous, and she looked for a way out of the airport. There was a midsized jet parked next to them with the engines running. Maybe she could hide in the toilet.

Their pilot came walking across the tarmac with a uniformed customs official, scaring her half to death, but the official wanted only to inspect the airplane, which took no more than two minutes, then he left.

“We’re cleared,” the pilot said, returning her passport. “It was no sweat about your entry stamp, and you’re stamped into the U.S. now.” He got her bag out of the airplane for her.

She put an arm around Jimmy’s neck and kissed him. “I’ll be in touch, baby. You just go back to L.A. and live your life. You know nothing about me.”

“Gotcha, kiddo,” he said, climbing back into the airplane.

BARBARASPENT THE NIGHT in an airport motel, then, the following morning, rented a car and drove to Phoenix, ending up in Scottsdale at the Mondrian, a fashionable hotel full of beautiful people.

She had a new life to invent now, and a long shopping list of a car, an untraceable cell phone, clothes and luggage. She started with a day at the hotel spa, including a recoloring and cut of her hair.

That night, snuggling in bed with a business executive she had met at the bar, Barbara thought of Ed Eagle. He was still out there, in Santa Fe, waiting for her.

She wouldn’t disappoint him.

Ed Eagle stopped by the D.A.’s office and asked to see him.

Roberto Martínez rose as Eagle entered, then shook his hand, waving him to a chair. “I’ve been expecting you, Ed.”

“Well, I’m glad I didn’t disappoint you, Bob,” Eagle replied with an easy smile.

“You ready for arraignment?”

“Oh, I don’t think we need to go that far, Bob.”

“ ‘That far’?”

“I think we should just settle this here, and get it over with.”

“Ed, are you already looking to plea-bargain? That makes me feel even better about our case.”

“Bob, I expect you haven’t had time to go over the case file,” Eagle said, starting to get up.

“Wait a minute,” Martínez said, waving him back to his chair. “I’ve had a look at the summary. It’s a good case.”

“Bob, Tip Hanks can account for every minute of his time between the hours of four A.M. and when he called nine-one-one. He was in Dallas, he couldn’t sleep, so he decided to get up and return home early. His wife wasn’t expecting him until noon.”

“So, he killed her earlier than planned,” Martínez said, leaning his chair way back and putting his feet on the desk.

“No, Bob, whoever she was in bed with shot her, and before Tip’s car pulled up to the house, because Tip never heard the shot. The killer heard Tip’s car door slam and beat it out of the bedroom door opening to the terrace, then ran down the hill to the dirt road where he’d parked his car. Tip heard him leave, and when he looked out the back door he saw dust, but the car was already around the bend and out of sight. If you can get the investigating officers to put down their comic books long enough, they might be able to get some footprints and tire tracks before it rains or the wind blows them away.”

“You want me to dismiss the charges on nothing more than that story?”

“Both sides of the bed had been slept in, but she was on the left side of the bed, where Tip slept. Somebody had moved her there while he was screwing her. I expect her ex-husband will testify to that sleeping habit of hers.”

“What else?”

“We don’t need anything else. You’re postulating that Tip walked into his house, went to the bedroom, took his gun out of the bedside table and shot his wife in the head, then called nine-one-one. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It didn’t have to happen that way,” Martínez said.

“The staff at the FBO at the airport will testify to Tip’s arrival time. They log in every aircraft that lands, and his was probably the first of the day. Drive the route from the FBO to his house and walk in. You’ll see there was no time for him to make love to her and have an argument before killing her. I think it likely that the medical examiner is going to discover somebody else’s DNA inside her.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“Even if the killer used a condom and left no trace, the M.E. will say that she had sex with somebody, and Tip’s DNA won’t be inside her.”

“Maybe he used a condom.”

“He knew she was on the pill. There was no need for him to do that.” Eagle was making this up, but he could see Martínez begin to show signs of folding.

Martínez put his feet back on the floor and leaned over his desk. “What evidence do you have that she was having an affair?”