by Stuart Woods
“Mexico? I’m afraid not, Don. There was some sort of kerfuffle at the border, and Cato made the mistake of reentering the United States, where an arrest warrant was waiting for him. They flew him back here overnight.”
“Ed, will you represent me?”
“No, Don, I’ve already resigned from that job, remember?”
“But I need the best possible Santa Fe lawyer, Ed, and that’s you.”
“Don, let me give you some free advice, something your next lawyer may not be too anxious to explain to you, since he will want to milk as much money as possible out of you before he does the deal.”
“Deal?”
“That’s my advice, Don. Make the best deal you can. Martínez is not unreasonable; he’ll take the death penalty off the table, if you give him a complete confession.”
“You’re advising me to send myself to prison?”
“It’s that or send yourself to death row for a few years until your appeals are exhausted and they execute you. You’re done, Don. Cato has cooked your goose to a fine turn. He even has you on tape. Now, if you want me to represent you just to make the deal, I’ll do that, but I won’t stand up in a courtroom and plead you not guilty. You’ve already lied to me repeatedly, and I don’t like clients who lie to me, even if a lot of them do.”
“I don’t want to take a deal,” Wells said.
“Then I suggest you call Raoul Samora, who is the second-best trial lawyer in Santa Fe, or James Parnell, who is nearly as good. You can get their numbers from Information. Anything else I can do for you, Don?”
“No,” Wells said, “there isn’t.” He hung up the phone and slumped in his chair. He looked around the room at the beautiful elm paneling in his study, at the books and papers that the police had scattered in their search, at the picture that had covered his safe, which stood exposed. He fought nausea.
With a trembling hand, Wells dialed 411 and got the usual recorded message. “Santa Fe, New Mexico,” he said, “residence of Raoul Samora.”
62
ED EAGLE HUNG up the phone just as Susannah entered the bedroom bearing a tray for him containing eggs Benedict. A moment later, she was back with her own tray and adjusting the rake of the electric bed. “Who was that, calling on a Sunday morning?”
“Don Wells,” Eagle said. “They’ve arrested him, and he’s looking for a lawyer again.”
“Not you, I hope.”
“That’s what I told him. I gave him a couple of names. With Cato’s testimony facing him he’s going to have to plead guilty to save his life.”
“Which is pretty much over.”
“Who knows, maybe they’ll let him do a prison film.”
They both dug into their eggs.
“It really is over, isn’t it? Confirm that for me just once more.”
“It really is over. Barbara’s in a Mexican jail, Don Wells will soon be in a New Mexican jail, and Jack Cato, the man who shot you already is.”
“Nobody’s ever going to shoot me again,” Susannah said.
“I sincerely hope not.”
The front doorbell rang the bedside phone intercom.
“Who the hell would be here on a Sunday morning?” Susannah asked.
Eagle pressed the speaker button on the phone. “Yes?”
“Flowers for Mr. Eagle and Ms. Wilde,” a woman’s voice said.
“Flowers?” Susannah asked. “Who would send us flowers?”
“Just leave them on the front doorstep,” Eagle said.
“I’m sorry, sir. I need a signature.”
“Who are they from?”
“I’m sorry; I’m not allowed to read the card.”
“Hang on a minute,” Eagle said. He switched off the speakerphone, set his tray aside and got out of bed, naked.
“Just tell her to go away,” Susannah said.
“This will just take a minute,” Eagle said, getting into a robe and slippers. He walked through the house to the front door and opened it. A small woman stood there, mostly hidden by an elaborate bouquet of flowers.
“Where would you like me to put them?” the woman asked.
“On the table over there,” Eagle said, “to your right.” He stepped back and allowed the woman to enter. As she passed, he snagged a small envelope hanging from the bouquet, opened it and read the card:
Thanks for everything, Ed. You deserve this.
Barbara
“When did you take this order?” Eagle asked the woman, who had set down the bouquet and was turning to face him. He heard the noise before he saw the gun in her hand. He flinched as something struck his left ear, then he ran for the front door, hoping to close it between them before she could get off another round.
“Susannah, get out of the house!” he yelled as another shot struck the doorjamb.
Then he heard another, louder noise, just once, and everything went quiet.
“Ed?” Susannah called.
“She’s got a gun!” Eagle yelled, flattening himself against the outer wall of the house.
“Not anymore,” Susannah said. “You can come back in.”
Eagle peeked through the front door. The flower woman was lying, spread-eagled on her back, her chest pumping blood. Susannah still stood in a combat stance, holding the .45 that he kept in his bedside drawer.
“Who is she?” Susannah asked.
“I have no idea, except that she delivered a message.” He picked up the card from where he had dropped it and handed it to Susannah.
She glanced at it but kept the pistol pointed at the flower woman. “She’s still bleeding, so she must still be alive. You’d better call an ambulance and the police. Make that two ambulances; you’re bleeding like a stuck pig.”
Eagle put a hand to his ear and walked over to the flower woman, kicking her small pistol away from her. “She’s stopped bleeding,” he said, bending over and putting two fingers to her throat. “She’s dead.”
Susannah walked to the nearest phone, called 911, and spoke to the operator, then she went to the fridge in the kitchen and came back with some ice wrapped in a dish towel and applied it to Eagle’s ear.
“You’ve got a nice, clean notch there,” she said. “A battle scar in the Barbara wars.”
“Which are now, officially, over,” he said.
“That’s what you said five minutes ago,” she replied, kissing him. “I’m going to keep going around armed for a while.”
“So am I,” he said, putting an arm around her and leading her back to the bedroom. “We’d better dress for the police.”
“When they’re gone, I’ll start over with the eggs Benedict,” she said.
“When they’re gone, we’ll start over with everything,” Eagle replied.
Epilogue
LEE HIGHT SAT at her desk in Joe Wilen’s old office, drafting a document in connection with his charitable foundation. Margie, Joe’s old secretary and now Lee’s, walked into the room, holding a newspaper.
“Did you see this?” she asked, placing the San Francisco morning paper on her desk. She tapped a story at the bottom of the front page.
Lee looked up to see the headline:
WALTER KEELER’S WIDOW CONVICTED IN MEXICO
Acapulco (AP) Barbara Eagle Keeler, widow of Palo Alto billionaire Walter Keeler, was convicted today in an Acapulco court of three counts of attempted murder. In spite of a brigade of expensive Mexican lawyers, the testimony of the three victims, Cupie Dalton of Los Angeles, Vittorio (only one name) of Santa Fe, New Mexico, both private investigators, and Ernesto Rodríguez, the nephew of the chief of police of Acapulco, proved convincing to the all-male jury.
Mrs. Keeler’s attorneys moved for a stay of sentencing, pending appeal, but the judge rejected their motion and immediately sentenced her to a term of twenty-five years to life and ordered her to prison.
A two-attorney delegation from the Palo Alto district attorney’s office presented an extradition request and arrest warrant on one count of murder, that of Joe Wilen, a business associate
of and attorney for Walter Keeler, but the judge told them they would have to wait at least twenty-five years to serve the papers.
A man, Jack Cato, who alleges that Mrs. Keeler hired him to kill Mr. Wilen, has been giving testimony in another murder trial in a Santa Fe, New Mexico, court, that of film producer, Donald Wells, who is charged with arranging the murders of his wife, a pharmaceuticals heiress, and her son.
The article continued inside the paper, but Lee stopped reading. “This is all I need,” she said. “Margie, I’ll dictate a letter to our bank, cutting off the woman’s monthly payments, then you get hold of a San Francisco realtor and put the apartment on the market. Tell them to clean out her clothes and personal belongings and give them to some charity.”
“Love to,” Margie replied, sitting down, steno pad in hand.
Author’s Note
I am happy to hear from readers, but you should know that if you write to me in care of my publisher, three to six months will pass before I receive your letter, and when it finally arrives it will be one among many, and I will not be able to reply.
However, if you have access to the Internet, you may visit my website at www.stuartwoods.com, where there is a button for sending me e-mail. So far, I have been able to reply to all of my e-mail, and I will continue to try to do so.
If you send me an e-mail and do not receive a reply, it is because you are among an alarming number of people who have entered their e-mail address incorrectly in their mail software. I have many of my replies returned as undeliverable.
Remember: e-mail, reply; snail mail, no reply.
When you e-mail, please do not send attachments, as I never open these. They can take twenty minutes to download, and they often contain viruses.
Please do not place me on your mailing lists for funny stories, prayers, political causes, charitable fund-raising, petitions or sentimental claptrap. I get enough of that from people I already know. Generally speaking, when I get e-mail addressed to a large number of people, I immediately delete it without reading it.
Please do not send me your ideas for a book, as I have a policy of writing only what I myself invent. If you send me story ideas, I will immediately delete them without reading them. If you have a good idea for a book, write it yourself, but I will not be able to advise you on how to get it published. Buy a copy of Writer’s Market at any bookstore; that will tell you how.
Anyone with a request concerning events or appearances may e-mail it to me or send it to: Publicity Department, Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.
Those ambitious folk who wish to buy film, dramatic or television rights to my books should contact Matthew Snyder, Creative Artists Agency, 9830 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 98212-1825.
Those who wish to make offers for rights of a literary nature should contact Anne Sibbaid, Janklow & Nesbit, 445 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022. (Note: This is not an invitation for you to send her your manuscript or to solicit her to be your agent.)
If you want to know if I will be signing books in your city, please visit my website, www.stuartwoods.com, where the tour schedule will be published a month or so in advance. If you wish me to do a book signing in your locality, ask your favorite bookseller to contact his Penguin representative or the Penguin publicity department with the request.
If you find typographical or editorial errors in my book and feel an irresistible urge to tell someone, please write to Rachel Kahan at Penguin’s address above. Do not e-mail your discoveries to me, as I will already have learned about them from others.
A list of my published works appears in the front of this book and on my website. All the novels are still in print in paperback and can be found at or ordered from any bookstore. If you wish to obtain hardcover copies of earlier novels or of the two nonfiction books, a good used-book store or one of the online bookstores can help you find them. Otherwise, you will have to go to a great many garage sales.
FROM A LIMITED EDITION OF
one hundred fifty copies
printed and bound especially
for friends of the author,
this and every other copy
has been numbered
001
so that everyone may
have a low number.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
AUTHOR’S NOTE
BOOKS BY STUART WOODS
FICTION
Lucid Intervals2
Kisser2
Hothouse Orchid1
Loitering with Intent2
Mounting Fears3
Hot Mahogany2
Santa Fe Dead4
Beverly Hills Dead
Shoot Him If He Runs2
Fresh Disasters2
Short Straw4
Dark Harbor2
Iron Orchid1
Two-Dollar Bill2
The Prince of Beverly Hills
Reckless Abandon2
Capital Crimes3
Dirty Work2
Blood Orchid1
The Short Forever2
Orchid Blues1
Cold Paradise2
L.A. Dead2
The Run3
Worst Fears Realized2
Orchid Beach1
Swimming to Catalina2
Dead in the Water2
Dirt2
Choke
Imperfect Strangers
Heat
Dead Eyes
L.A. Times
Santa Fe Rules4
New York Dead2
Palindrome
Grass Roots3
White Cargo
Deep Lie3
Under the Lake
Run Before the Wind3
Chiefs3
TRAVEL
A Romantic’s Guide to the Country Inns of Britain and Ireland (1979)
MEMOIR
Blue Water, Green Skipper (1977)
G.P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books
Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Copyright © 2010 by Stuart Woods
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Woods, Stuart.
Santa Fe edge / Stuart Woods. p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-44344-6
1. Eagle, Ed (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Organized crime—Mexican-American Border Region—Fiction. 3. Divorced women—Fiction. 4. Santa Fe (N.M.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3573.O642S
813’.54—dc22
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
