by Stuart Woods
“Search my house? Why would you do that?”
“. . . and a warrant for your arrest on two charges of first-degree murder.” The man set the two documents on the kitchen counter and produced a pair of handcuffs. “Turn around, please, and put your hands behind you.”
Wells stood, frozen in place, so the detective spun him around and cuffed him.
“Now listen, please, while I read your rights. You have the right to remain silent . . .”
Wells immediately thought of Tina and Soledad. That’s what this is about, he thought. Keep your mouth shut and call a lawyer.
“Do you understand these rights?”
“Yes,” Wells said. “I want to call my lawyer.”
“Come with me; I’ll get you a telephone.” The detective led him into his study, uncuffed one hand and cuffed him to his chair. “There you go. Make your phone call and just wait here.” He started to leave.
Wells needed to know something. “Detective, whom am I charged with murdering?”
“Why, your wife and son, of course. The extradition process is under way. I’ll be back in a minute.” He left the room.
Wells had to reorient his thinking before he took his address book from an open drawer, looked up Ed Eagle’s home number in Santa Fe and dialed it.
“Hello,” the deep voice said.
“Ed, it’s Don Wells.”
“Good morning, Don. What can I do for you on a Sunday morning?” he asked drily.
“Ed, my house is full of cops, searching it.”
“What for?”
“I don’t know, but they also have an arrest warrant.”
“On what charge?”
“Murder of my wife and son. This is crazy, Ed! They’re extraditing me to Santa Fe, and I need you to represent me again.”
“Well, first of all, Don, it’s not crazy. I had a call a few minutes ago from Bob Martínez—you remember him—the district attorney here?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And Bob tells me they’ve got Jack Cato in jail here in Santa Fe, and he’s singing like a bird.”
“But that’s not possible; Jack’s in . . .”
“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 ble
eding,” 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
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this and every other copy
has been numbered
001
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