Stuart Woods: Santa Fe Edge

“Yeah. I just wanted to be sure you felt up to playing.”

“I will by next week.”

“Okay, I’m just going to lie around the house until then. See you in Houston.”

Tip took calls from his agent and sponsors as well, then things quieted down. He had a call from the medical examiner’s office saying that Connie’s body had been released. Ed Eagle’s office recommended a mortuary, and he ordered the body collected and cremated. Connie had no family, so there was no one to notify.

As he was getting some pocket money from the safe he saw the envelopes holding their wills, and he opened Connie’s, which he hadn’t seen before. It turned out that she had received a substantial settlement in her last divorce, and she had left everything to him. His net worth had suddenly been increased by some seven hundred thousand dollars. He faxed the will to Eagle’s office.

Tip made himself a sandwich for lunch and thought about what had happened. Who the hell could Connie have been fucking? And why would the guy want to kill her? If he’d been five minutes earlier coming home, he might have surprised them. Then it occurred to him that if that had happened, the guy might have killed them both.

He put his dishes into the dishwasher and went back to the safe, where he kept a small nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol. He threaded the holster onto his belt and pulled out his shirttail to cover it. He would carry it for a while, at least while he was in Santa Fe. He was licensed in the state, and his old Florida license covered him in nearly half the country.

He went into his study and found a stack of bills next to his computer. Connie had usually paid them online, but he knew how to do it. The one on top was her credit card bill, and there were a lot of lunch charges, and judging from the amounts, they were for two people. That surprised him, because Connie had not made a lot of friends since she had been in Santa Fe. The charges were from half a dozen of Santa Fe ’s best restaurants.

Tip called Ed Eagle and told him what he had found.

“That’s interesting,” Eagle said. “I think the police might like to know who she’d been lunching with, but I think we might like to know first. Will you spring for a few hundred dollars for an investigator to visit the restaurants?”

“Sure, Ed. By the way, I faxed you Connie’s will. I’d like you to take care of whatever legalities are involved.”

“I’ll put an associate on it,” Eagle said, “and I’ll send a messenger out there for the original; we’ll need it.”

“I’ll leave it on the front porch in an envelope,” Tip said.

“Good. I’ll let you know what our investigator learns, and we can decide if it should go to the police.”

“Good, thanks.”

“One other thing,” Eagle said. “I’ve spoken to the medical examiner, and there was no DNA present at the scene, not yours or anybody else’s.”

“So, he would have used a condom?”

“One supposes. Have you thought any more about the killer? Does anyone leap to mind?” Eagle asked.

“No. Connie didn’t have many friends in Santa Fe.”

“Someone from out of town?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Be careful of your behavior, Tip. The police are still thinking about you, and they may even have you followed.”

“I thought I was cleared.”

“Not necessarily. The charges have been dropped, but the D.A. could always bring them again, if new and incriminating evidence should emerge. You have to remember that having the charges dropped was a slap in the face to the investigating detectives, so they’re not exactly on your side.”

“I don’t see how they can find anything incriminating,” Tip said. “After all, I didn’t do it.”

“Right. Fax me the credit card bills, and I’ll get back to you as soon as our investigator checks them out.”

Tip hung up, put the will in an envelope and left it leaning against the front door with Eagle’s name on it, then went back to paying bills. He was going to have to hire a secretary, he thought.

Teddy Fay’s single-engine Cessna 182 RG crossed a range of snowcapped mountains late in the afternoon. It had been a long day against headwinds. He looked to his right at Lauren Cade, who seemed to be dozing. He placed a hand on her knee, and she stirred. “We’ll be on the ground at Santa Fe in fifteen minutes,” he said.

Lauren looked around. “What are these mountains?”

“The Sangre de Cristos,” he said. “They run up to Taos, north of here.”

“What about south?”

“They peter out.”

“Pretty. Is it going to be cold in Santa Fe?”

“Probably, but it’s a dry cold. You won’t feel it so much.”

“I’m going to have to buy a coat,” she said. “I didn’t own one in Florida.”

“We’ll both have to do that,” Teddy said.

Albuquerque Center called. “Descend and maintain one zero thousand,” the controller said. “Report the airport in sight.”

The weather was startlingly clear, and after consulting the GPS map, he thought he could pick out the field. The automated weather recording said that the wind was 190 at 10 knots. Five minutes later he reported the airport in sight.

“Cleared for the visual approach to Santa Fe,” the controller said.

Teddy descended to eight thousand, and once at that altitude, he turned left downwind for runway twenty and called Santa Fe tower.

“Cleared to land on twenty,” the controller replied.

He touched down smoothly on the runway and taxied to Santa Fe Jetcenter, where a rental car awaited them. He placed a fuel order and arranged hangar space, then he and Lauren drove into the city.

“Teddy,” she said, “I know there are some things you haven’t told me about yourself.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you talk so little about your past. I just want you to know that as far as I’m concerned, your life began the day I met you.”

Teddy smiled. “I feel exactly the same way,” he said. He had been struggling with how much to tell her, and how to justify his behavior since he had retired from the CIA some years before after a thirty-year career. Teddy had been an assistant deputy director for technical services at the Agency. Tech Services was the innocuous name for the department that supported foreign agents in the field, supplying identities, weapons, disguises, communications and anything else they might need. The work had given him an astonishing range of skills, and he had used them to stay out of prison. He turned to Lauren.

“I’ll tell you this much,” he said. “I worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for thirty years. I know that sounds like a bad pickup line in a bar, but it’s true.”

“I believe you,” she said. “Is that why you know so much about so many things?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Did you have to do bad things?”

“I’ve done some bad things, and I don’t want to talk about them, if that’s all right.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “I’d just as soon not know.” Lauren had been a sergeant with a special investigative unit of the Florida State Police. She’d left a good career to go with Teddy. He knew it and was grateful.

“I’ve booked us into the Inn of the Anasazi for a week,” he said. “If you like the town, we can look for a house to rent. If not, we can go on to California whenever you like.”

They continued into the town, drove through the Plaza and checked into the hotel, which, like just about everything else in the town, was built in Santa Fe style. A fire of piñon logs burned in the lobby, and the piney scent filled the air.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, eighteen hundred miles east of Santa Fe, Holly Barker arrived at her office a little after seven AM. Holly was assistant deputy director of operations, reporting directly to the director of operations, Lance Cabot, and she wanted to get to the office before he did. Lance had been on leave when she had returned from a month in Orchid Beach, Florida, where she had once been the chief of police.