Stuart Woods - Santa Fe Dead

“Are you still in L.A.?”

"Yep, I’ve got one more interview, then I’ll get a plane home later this afternoon.”

"I’m in L.A., too, and I’ll give you a lift back to Santa Fe, if you can be at Santa Monica Airport in a couple of hours.”

“That would be great, Raoul. I’ll be there.”

“The airplane’s at Supermarine.”

“See you there.” Reese hung up. This was a nice break; now he wouldn’t have to fly to Albuquerque and take the shuttle bus to Santa Fe. He could be home for dinner.

At Centurion he went directly to Jeff Bender’s office. Soledad Rivera was sitting in Bender’s waiting room, and she glared at him as he passed through to Bender’s office. He had summoned her there from the costume department, where she worked with Tina López.

“Hi, Alex. She’s outside.”

“Yeah, I saw her.”

“Let’s get her in here, then,” Bender said, picking up his phone.

Soledad was more composed than she had been at their last meeting, Reese thought. “Good afternoon, Soledad,” he said.

“What do you want?” she asked, sounding hostile.

“I wanted to give you a chance to talk to me without Tina being here,” he said. “I think you’re about to get into a lot of trouble, and I want to help you, if I can.”

“You don’t want to help me,” she said, “and anyway, I don’t need your help. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Think about that, Soledad. If you testify in court that you were in Tijuana with Cato and Edwards, you’ll be in more trouble than you can imagine. Right at this moment, if you don’t talk to me, you’re obstructing justice.”

“I don’t have anything to say,” she said.

“Soledad, you have a good job and a nice life. Why would you want to throw that away, risk going to prison for the rest of your life?”

“I haven’t done anything wrong, and I don’t have anything to say.”

Reese and Bender exchanged a glance, and Bender shrugged.

Reese gave her his card. “If you change your mind, here’s my number. I can keep you out of jail, Soledad.”

She took the card but said nothing else, just walked out of the office.

“That didn’t go too well,” Reese said. “She was very emotional at our last meeting, and I thought she might break if I got her away from Tina, who is obviously in charge.”

“That reminds me,” Bender said. “A lot of gossip comes my way around here, and I heard something that might interest you.”

“What’s that?”

“This is just a rumor, mind you, and I can’t prove it, but I heard that Don Wells has been fucking Tina López for a while.”

“Before his wife’s murder?”

“That’s what I hear. I wish I could back it up, but I can’t.”

“That’s very interesting, Jeff.” He thanked the security chief for his help and left, headed for Santa Monica Airport.

AS DARKNESS APPROACHED, Jack Cato drove his car to the Compton airport, a small field southeast of Los Angeles International, then to the Compton Flying Club, where he had learned to fly fifteen years before and where he sometimes rented airplanes.

He parked his car and walked over to where the Beech Bonanza had been left parked for him. He opened the fuel caps and checked to be sure the airplane had been refueled, then he performed a preflight check and kicked away the chocks securing the wheels, finding the airplane’s key under the nosewheel chock.

He tossed his duffel and hat and the briefcase containing the sniper’s rifle into the rear seat, got the airplane started and taxied to the end of the runway. He called Socal Approach and gave them his tail number. “Departing Compton VFR, bound for Palmdale,” he said into the headset. “Request a squawk code and vectors to the Palmdale VOR.”

“Bonanza, squawk four-seven/four-seven cleared for takeoff. Fly runway heading and maintain VFR,” the controller said.

Cato taxied onto the runway and shoved the throttle forward. A moment later he lifted off just in time to see the upper limb of the sun sink into the Pacific. Twenty minutes later, after a number of vectored turns, he was at the Palmdale VOR, a navigation beacon. He thanked the Socal controller, was authorized to change frequencies, then switched off the transponder and turned the radio volume all the way down. Now he didn’t exist for the controllers, except as a primary radar target, so his tail number did not appear on their screens.

He entered 17,500 feet into the altitude preselect unit, entered SAF into the GPS computer, then climbed to his selected altitude, slipping on an oxygen mask at 10,000. He was flying across the Mojave Desert, direct to Santa Fe, at an altitude rarely used by general aviation aircraft, and although he had a screen display of other airplanes in the area, it was unlikely that any of them would ever come near him. All he had to do for the rest of the flight was to switch fuel tanks from time to time. He switched on the Sirius Satellite Radio, tuned in a country music station and opened a sandwich he had brought with him. The GPS told him he would be in Santa Fe in two hours and forty minutes.

Half an hour out of Santa Fe he took a sunglasses case from his pocket and opened it. Inside was something he had stolen from the makeup department during his last movie: a beautiful and voluminous handlebar moustache. He switched on the cabin lights, painted his upper lip with adhesive from a small bottle and, using a mirror, affixed the moustache.

He landed at Santa Fe, put on his large cowboy hat and went into the reception building at Santa Fe Jet. Using a fake driver’s license with an Austin, Texas, address, he signed up for the rental car he had reserved, left a thousand-dollar cash deposit and placed his fuel and oxygen order, then he was on his way. The girl behind the counter would remember only a man with a big hat, a broad Texas accent and an outlandish moustache.

Cato knew Santa Fe fairly well, because he had made two pictures there and because he had studied a map and had located the route prescribed by the woman who had hired him.

He checked into a motel on Cerrillos Road, a busy, six-lane approach to the city, and watched TV until he got sleepy. He slept until past ten A.M., then donned his moustache and hat and had breakfast at McDonald’s. He then drove to the northern outskirts of the city to a country road where he had once driven a stagecoach in a film.

He got out of the car and walked a couple of hundred yards into the desert, where he set up some stones as targets, then paced off one hundred yards. He assembled the rifle, loaded it and first from a prone position, then kneeling and standing, fired at the stones, making minute corrections to the telescopic sight until he was zeroed in. Then he disassembled the rifle, packed it into its case and walked back to his car.

He had some lunch at the Tesuque Market, a local grocery and restaurant, then he found the road where his target lived. He drove past the house, then turned around and drove back, checking it out again. Along the way he saw a little dirt track where he could park his car, unseen. Satisfied, he went back to his motel and watched a NASCAR race on TV.

He had a late dinner at a place on Canyon Road, still in his moustache and never removing his hat. A little past midnight, he got into his car and drove slowly out to the target house, parked his car and began to make ready.

EAGLE HAD DINNER in town with Susannah, made a lunch date with her for the next day, then drove her back to her house. He called a cell number he had been given.

“Yes?” a voice said.

“It’s Ed Eagle. Can I come home now?”

“Yes. I’m in the house, and I’ve got a man patrolling the perimeter of the property.”