Santa Fe Dead

“Dalton,” the voice said.

“Cupie, it’s Ed Eagle. How are you?”

“Well, hello there. I’m okay, you?”

“Not bad. I watched your testimony on TV; you did a good job.” Cupie Dalton was one of the two private investigators Eagle had hired to follow his ex-wife to Mexico when she had decamped with a lot of his money.

“I watched yours, too, and so did you.”

“You heard she was acquitted.”

“Yeah. Go figure.”

“A friend has convinced me that I need to know where she is.”

“A good friend,” Cupie said. “I’m surprised you couldn’t figure that out on your own. She’s a dangerous woman.”

“I can’t imagine that she’d come back to Santa Fe, but I’d feel better if you could track her down.”

“I hear she walked on the escape charge, so I guess she’s free as a bird.”

“Yes. I’d feel better if she were reporting to a parole officer every week.”

“Well, yeah. You got any leads for me?”

“Just one: Jimmy Long.”

“He was her alibi for the time of the shooting, right?”

“Right.”

“What do you know about him?”

“He’s a rich kid who always wanted to make movies, and something of a playboy. Surprisingly, he’s produced some pretty good films.”

“So he’s well-known around town?”

“He is. He lives somewhere in Beverly Hills or Bel-Air, I think.”

“It won’t be any trouble to find out.”

“I’m sure he helped her with the escape; she doesn’t have any other friends out there that I know of.”

“You think she might be holed up at his house?”

“I doubt it,” Eagle said. “She was a fugitive for twenty-four hours or so, and that’s the first place the cops would have looked.”

“Last time, she laid low at a high-end spa place in La Jolla,” Cupie said.

“I doubt if she’d go where anyone knows her.”

“Probably not, but I’d be willing to bet she’d go to another place a lot like it.”

“Well, Southern California is riddled with those places; it would be hard to know where to start.”

“Of course,” Cupie said, “but I’ll bet she chose one not that far away. She’d want to get off the roads as soon as possible after her escape, and no later than di

“That’s a good thought. You don’t think she’d go back to Mexico?”

Cupie snorted. “Not while there’s a chief of police down there whose nephew’s dick she and her sister cut off.”

“You’re right.”

“I’ll start with Jimmy Long.”

“I don’t think he’s going to want to talk to you,” Eagle said.

“Does he have an office outside his home?”

“I don’t know.”

“Won’t take long to find out.”

“She’s probably using another name,” Eagle said.

“Probably, but I know where she got her last set of documents. I’ll pay somebody a call.”

“Good man.”

“It’s a thousand a day with a five-thousand minimum, plus expenses.”

“Agreed. She will probably have changed her appearance, too, if her last outing is any indication.”

“I’ll take that into consideration.”

“Just remember that she knows what you look like, Cupie, so she’ll have the advantage of you. Don’t let it get you hurt, like last time.”

“Yes, she does have a tendency to shoot first and not bother with questions, doesn’t she?”

“She does.”

“Well, you can bet I’ll be more careful than I was in Mexico,” Cupie said. “Listen, are you sure that all you want is to know where she is?”

“That’s all, Cupie, nothing else. Let’s be clear about that. Once you’ve found her, though, I may want you to keep tabs on her location.”

“When we get to that point, I can hire somebody cheaper just to watch her movements.”

“There’s something else, Cupie.”

“What’s that?”

“She’s good at using men. The last time you went after her she never had time to get next to anybody, but she’s been on the loose for a few days, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she has probably already latched onto somebody.”

“The poor bastard,” Cupie said.

9

BARBARA/ELEANOR HAD NOW spent two days in the company of Walter Keeler, and she had played her cards very carefully. She had listened rather than talked, and, eventually, he had poured his heart out. As she had suspected, his marriage to his late wife hadn’t been all he had wanted it to be, and there was an element of relief as well as guilt in his feelings about being a newly minted widower.

She had talked about herself only when he had asked her questions, and she had always been brief, sticking to a story that would be easy for her to remember. She had never made any allusion to any future after their time together at the spa, not even “Let’s have di

She had her chance as they were finishing di

“You know,” he said, “I like this place, but there’s something u

“Well,” she said, smiling, “I guess I’m smarter than you are.”

His eyebrows went up. “Oh, yeah?”

“If you’d like some very fine bourbon, let’s part company now, then meet in my suite in fifteen minutes.”

“What a grand idea!” he said.

“And be stealthy; we wouldn’t want to give the staff something to talk about.”

“I’ll do better than that,” he said. “I’ll be sneaky.”

Barbara stood up and offered her hand. “Thank you so much for di

“So did I,” he said. He sat down and waved for the check.

BARBARA WENT BACK to her suite, stripped naked and slipped into a cotton shift with a zipper down the back. She freshened her body with a damp facecloth and sprayed her crotch with something both scented and flavored.

When his knock came, she let him in and waved him to the large comfortable sofa. “How would you like it?” she asked.

“What?”

“Your drink,” she said, laughing.

“Oh, on the rocks, please.”

She poured two generous drinks and set them on the coffee table, then sat down-not too close to him-and faced him, pulling her knees onto the sofa.

Keeler sipped his drink. “That’s wonderful! What is it?”

“Knob Creek, a boutique bourbon. I’ll never drink anything else; it’s my only real legacy from my late husband.” Good to plant that thought now.

“This is the best I’ve felt for a long time,” he said.

“Must be the bourbon.”

He smiled and shook his head. “No, it’s a lot more than that.”

“Oh?”

“Come on, you feel this, too.”

“I certainly feel something,” she said.

“You’re sure it’s not the bourbon?”

“Fairly sure.”

He put his hand on her cheek and kissed her, sweetly, no tongue.

She returned the kiss in the spirit in which it was offered. He sighed. “It’s been a long time.”

“Yes, it has been for me, too.”

“I have a feeling that empty period of my life has come to a close.”

“That’s what I’d like to feel,” she said.

He kissed her again, this time more passionately.

She flicked her tongue in and out of his mouth and ran her fingers through his thick hair.

He took hold of her, turned her around and laid her across his lap, her head on his shoulder.

She put an arm around his neck and played with an ear. She could feel him hardening under the weight of her body.

“Does this suite have a bedroom?” he asked.

“It does.”

“Why don’t we continue this conversation there, before I explode?”

“I think that’s a good idea,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to explode-not just yet, anyway.”

He scooped her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom, laying her on the bed.

She turned her back to him. “Zipper, please?”

He complied, and she heard his own zipper working. A moment later they were fully embracing.

“Easy,” she said. “Be tender.”

He was, and so was she.