by Stuart Woods
“I don’t need to lie down,” she protested.
“Yes, you do, and the detectives want to question me alone.”
“Oh, all right.” She stretched out on the bed, and Eagle went back into the living room and sat down. The detectives questioned him closely. Shortly, the crime scene investigator walked over.
“Lieutenant, you want my preliminary report?”
“Yes, please.”
“Cause of death, gunshot wound to the heart; time of death, approximately half an hour ago. We have the weapon, a .45-caliber, semiautomatic pistol.” He held up a plastic bag containing Eagle’s gun. “One shot fired, range three to four feet. A .38 revolver was on the floor beside the decedent in a position consistent with it being in his hand when he was shot. I’ll need to examine the woman’s hands for gunshot residue.”
Eagle went into the bedroom and got Susannah, explaining what was to be done. She sat at the dining room table with the investigator. When he was done, she got up and went back into the bedroom.
Rivera held up the gun. “Mr. Eagle, you said this is yours?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Do you live in this apartment with Ms. Wilde?”
“No.”
“Do you have a license for this weapon in Los Angeles?”
Eagle produced his carry license.
“Where do you reside?”
“In Santa Fe, New Mexico.” Eagle gave them the address.
“How did you obtain this license?”
“I filled out an application and sent it to Chief Sams.”
“I see you’ve had it for some years,” Rivera said, checking the date on the license, then returning it to Eagle. “It’s an interesting gun,” he said. “Tell me about it.”
“It was made by a gunsmith named Terry Tussey, who lives and works in High City, Nevada. One of his specialties is making small, lightweight .45s.”
“Ah, yes. I’ve seen photographs of his work. How much does it weigh?”
“Twenty-one ounces, empty. I would be grateful if you would return it to me as soon as your investigation will allow; it’s an expensive weapon, and I don’t want to lose it.”
“I’ll see that you get it back as soon as it’s released.” Rivera handed the gun to Riley. “All right, Mr. Eagle. Our preliminary investigative conclusion is that this was a legal shooting, so we won’t be arresting Ms. Wilde, unless evidence to the contrary emerges.”
“Thank you. I should tell you that Ms. Wilde and I plan to fly to Santa Fe tomorrow, where we both have residences.” He handed Rivera his card. “You are welcome to speak with her by telephone, through me. If you require her presence in Los Angeles, I’ll bring her back within twenty-four hours of the request. In the meantime, anything you can legally do to keep her name out of the press would be very much appreciated.”
“I can’t make any promises, but I’ll do what I can. Mr. Eagle, do you always travel armed?”
“I always have a weapon in my luggage, and sometimes I wear it. I fly my own airplane, so I don’t have to deal with airport security.”
“Did you have some particular reason to be wearing it on this trip?”
“Yes, I think my ex-wife wants to kill me.”
“I read about the trial,” Rivera said. “It seems that, between you and Ms. Wilde, you have an abundance of murderous ex-spouses.”
“An overabundance,” Eagle said, “until today.”
The body was removed, and Eagle saw the two detectives out. The bloodstain on the carpet was the only evidence of what had occurred.
Eagle went into the bedroom to check on Susannah. She was lying on the bed, sound asleep.
5
BARBARA EAGLE/ELEANOR WRIGHT regarded her new auburn-colored, artfully streaked hairdo in the salon mirror and nodded. Even if she was no longer wanted by the police, she thought it a good idea to have a different look. Half the country had watched her trial on Court TV and the evening news, and she had no wish to be recognized. It was time to learn whether she would be.
She left the salon, went into the very chic El Rancho shop and tried on bikinis, selecting two, along with some suntan lotion. Her new, slimmer figure was shown to great advantage by the tiny swimsuits. She went back to her suite, got into a bikini, grabbed a robe and headed for the pool. It was nearly lunchtime, and she was getting hungry.
She selected a chaise at poolside, and a waitress materialized a second or two later. “May I bring you something, Mrs. Wright, or would you prefer to choose from our low-fat buffet?” she asked, indicating the setup at the end of the pool.
“Thank you,” Barbara replied. “I’d like a turkey club sandwich on rye toast with real, honest-to-God bacon and mayonnaise and a Bloody Mary.”
“Of course, ma’am, but I’m afraid it will be a virgin Mary, since we don’t serve alcohol.”
“All right, all right,” she said, and the young woman vanished.
There were some magazines on the table next to her chaise, and she had begun leafing through a Vanity Fair when she saw a man come from the direction of the rooms and drop his robe on a chaise two down from hers. He appeared to be in his late forties, but his hair was almost entirely gray; he was tanned and fit-looking, with a flat belly and well-developed musculature.
Barbara pointed her eyes at the magazine and used her peripheral vision. The man walked past her to the diving board, stretched a little, then performed a perfectly executed dive into the pool. He surfaced and began swimming laps, moving easily and gracefully through the water.
The waitress arrived with her sandwich and began setting up the table beside Barbara.
“Who is the gentleman in the pool?” Barbara asked.
“Oh, that’s Mr. Walter Keeler,” the young woman replied. “He was widowed recently and has been with us for the last month or so, resting and toning up.”
It’s working, Barbara said to herself. “What does he do?” she asked.
“I believe he sold his company not long ago—some sort of electronics, I think.”
“Thank you, dear,” Barbara said, signing the check and adding a crisp twenty from her purse.
“Oh, thank you, ma’am,” the young woman said. “May I get you anything else?”
Barbara wanted to say Yes, get me Mr. Walter Keeler, but she restrained herself. “No, thank you, dear.” She busied herself applying suntan lotion, while surreptitiously following Keeler’s progress with his laps. He must have swum fifty, she thought, because she had finished her club sandwich by the time he got out of the pool.
He looked toward her as he passed, smiling and nodding. She rewarded him with a small smile, then went back to her magazine.
He stood, drying himself with a large towel. He toweled his hair dry, then ran his fingers through it. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” he said.
She turned and looked at him, affecting surprise. “Sorry?”
“The weather, it’s lovely.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Yes, it is.”
“It usually is up here. It’s cooler than in Palm Springs, what with the elevation.”
“Have you been here long?”
“A month tomorrow,” he replied.
“That’s a long stay.”
“You must have just arrived; I haven’t seen you before.”
“Yes, just last night. I just felt like getting away for a few days.”
“Away from where?” he asked.
“I’ve been staying in Los Angeles with friends. I came out from New York last month.”
“Is New York your home?”
“I’ve just sold my apartment there,” Barbara said, “and I haven’t decided where I want to alight.”
“You sound free as a bird.”
“I suppose I am,” she said. “It’s not quite as much fun as I thought it would be. I lost my husband a few months ago, and I thought a change of scenery might help.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. “I know how you feel, because I lost my wife recently. I suppos
e I’m footloose, as well; I sold my business after her death, and I haven’t decided yet where I want to live.”
“Where were you living before?”
“In Palo Alto. I had an aircraft electronics business there.”
“A pleasant place?”
“Yes, it is, but I’d like to get away from the Silicon Valley crowd. I’ve been thinking about San Francisco.”
“Such a beautiful city.”
“Yes, it is. Oddly enough, I’ve spent very little time there, even though I’ve been living close by for more than fifteen years.”
“Where else are you considering?”
“Oh, I thought about Seattle, but there’s such a lot of rain there. The cool summers in San Francisco appeal to me.”
“I know what you mean; I’ve never liked the heat much.”
Keeler put down his towel. “May I join you?” he asked, indicating the empty chaise next to her.
“Please.”
He settled onto the chaise. “Lunch?”
“I’ve just eaten, thanks.”
“I hope you don’t mind watching me eat.”
“Not at all.”
He ordered a sandwich and a virgin Mary. “I haven’t gotten used to the no-alcohol rule, though I suppose it hasn’t hurt me. I’ve lost nine or ten pounds since I got here.”
“You look great,” she said, “but a man should have two drinks a day, according to the latest medical studies.”
“Doctor’s orders? I like that.”
She sipped her virgin Mary.
“A friend of mine used to call a virgin Mary a ‘bloody awful.’”
She laughed. “Well said.”
They chatted on into the afternoon, and Barbara invented her background on the fly.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Walter Keeler—Walt.”
“I’m Eleanor Wright,” she said. “Ellie.” And you and I, she thought, are going to get to know each other very well.
6
EAGLE AWOKE AT seven, as usual, and checked Susannah. She was still soundly asleep. He showered, shaved and dressed, then sat down on the bed next to her and stroked her cheek. “You ready for some breakfast?” he asked.
Her eyelids fluttered and she moved a bit. “Good morning.” “Breakfast?”
“Toast and coffee, please.”
“Don’t go back to sleep; we need to get an early start.”
“Why?” she asked sleepily.
“I’ve been out of the office for a week, and things have been piling up.”
She struggled into a sitting position. “Okay, I’m awake.”
Eagle made coffee and toast and poured juice. Susannah’s hair was still wet from the shower when she came to the table.
“How are you feeling?”
“Good,” she said. “I slept very soundly.”
“Did you dream?”
“Probably, but I don’t remember what.”
She seemed to have no thought of what had happened the day before. She had been asleep for a good fifteen hours. He wondered if she had, somehow, blocked the shooting from her mind. “I’ll get packed,” he said, “and you get dressed.”
AN HOUR LATER they took the elevator to the lobby, and Eagle held the door for her while she spoke to the man at the desk.
“Terry, please get the carpet cleaners in and have them do the apartment,” she said, “with special attention to the area by the front door.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the man replied, reaching for the phone.
Susannah returned to the elevator, and Eagle let it continue to the basement garage. Apparently, she hadn’t completely forgotten about yesterday.
THEY TOOK OFF from Santa Monica Airport in Eagle’s airplane less than an hour later, shepherded by air traffic control to the Palmdale VOR, then cleared direct Grand Canyon, direct Santa Fe. Sped along by a strong tailwind, they got a good look at the spectacular hole in the ground and were in Santa Fe in plenty of time for lunch.
“Your place or mine?” he asked her as they drove away from the airport.
“Mine,” she replied. “I’ve got some stuff to do around the house. I’ll pick up some things and come to you by dinnertime.”
“Out or in?”
“Make a reservation somewhere,” she said.
They drove the twenty minutes to her house, and he pulled into the driveway, got her bags out and took them into the house. Before he left, he sat her down in the study.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“I’m very well, Ed, I told you that.”
“Listen, you’ve been through a traumatic experience, and it’s going to catch up with you sooner or later.” He wrote a name and number on the back of his business card and gave it to her. “This guy is the best psychotherapist in Santa Fe. His name is Daniel Shea, and he lives and works two or three miles from here. I think you should have a talk with him.”
“Ed, please believe me, I’m fine.”
“You have the number. If you start to feel . . . depressed, please call him.”
“If I start to feel depressed,” she said. “I’ll see you later—six or six thirty, at your house.”
“Okay.” He kissed her and left the house, then drove to his office.
HIS OFFICES WERE only a year old, atop one of the taller buildings around the Plaza, the heart of the city. Eagle strolled through the outer area, waving at his employees. “All right, everybody,” he called to them, “get to work; the boss is back.”
His secretary followed him into the office. “There’s a stack of phone messages on your desk that weren’t important enough to forward to L.A.”
“Fine, make a reservation for two at Santa Café at seven thirty, please.”
“Will do. There’s some correspondence, too, and a couple of briefs that you dictated before you left. Please review them.”
“Okay, okay.” He began making phone calls, apologizing for his absence. Half the people he spoke to had watched his testimony at Barbara’s trial. One of the messages was from Daniel Shea. He called the number.
“Dan? It’s Ed.”
"Hello, Ed. Congratulations on your performance in L.A.”
“A lot of good it did me; she’s free as a bird.”
“How do you feel about that, Ed?”
“Don’t you ask me those shrink questions, Dan,” Eagle said, chuckling. “I’ll feel just fine as long as Barbara is in another state.”
“Is that where she is?”
“I hope I never know.”
“Ed, we’ve never talked much about this, but you should know that Barbara, like her late sister, Julia, is an obsessive.”
“And what is her obsession?”
“You.”
“Oh, come on, Daniel. She’s out; she’ll want to stay out. She won’t want to mess with me.”
“Are you forgetting that Julia tried to set up her husband for a triple murder and then killed my brother? And damn near got away with it? Are you forgetting that Barbara hired two men to kill you? I’m telling you, it runs in the family. I never knew the third sister, but I’d be willing to bet she shared the family trait.”
"Well, I was careful in L.A. after I learned that she had escaped the courthouse.”
“Now she doesn’t have to be careful, you know. She can move right back to Santa Fe, if she wants to, and live on her divorce settlement from you.”
That settlement still rankled Eagle, but it had been worth it to get rid of her. “Yes, I suppose she could, but why would she want to?”
“Ed, do you know what an obsession is? It’s the opposite of a phobia. A phobia is an irrational fear of something: flying, water, open spaces, almost anything. An obsession is a compulsive fascination with something, either a love or a hatred of the object. You are the object, and she is not going to walk away from you.”
“By the way, Dan, I’ve been seeing a woman named Susannah Wilde, and yesterday, in L.A., she shot and killed her ex-husband, who was threateni
ng her with a gun. She’s off the hook legally, but I’m not sure about psychologically. It’s weird; she behaves as if the shooting never happened, and I’m not sure how long she can keep that up.”
“Tell her to call me; I’ll work her in.”
“I already have. I just wanted you to know who she is when she calls.”
“Maybe you should come and see me, too, Ed.”
“Come on, Dan. You know I have no neuroses. I’m the sanest guy you know.”
“I’ll concede that, but it troubles me that you seem unable to face the Barbara problem.”
“Dan, if the Barbara problem arises again, I’ll deal with it, but I’m not going to spend my days and nights worrying about it.”
“That’s a sane approach, Ed, but a potentially dangerous one.”
“Let’s have dinner soon, okay?”
“Are you free tonight?” Daniel asked.
“Tell you what, meet Susannah and me at Santa Café at seven thirty.”
“I’d love to.”
“She’s going to think I’m setting her up, so don’t bring up her problem.”
“Of course not. See you at seven thirty.”
"We’ll look forward to it.” Eagle hung up and went back to the work on his desk.
7
SUSANNAH ARRIVED AT Eagle’s house and deposited her things in the master bedroom’s second dressing room. Eagle had long ago given Barbara’s clothes to the Salvation Army, and the room had been empty until Susannah had begun to leave a few things there.
They got into Eagle’s car. “A friend is joining us,” he said as he pointed the car down the mountain road.
“Who’s that?”
“His name is Daniel Shea.”
“The shrink you told me about?”
“Yes, but I’m not setting you up. He called this afternoon and suggested dinner, so I asked him to join us.”
“You’re just trying to get my head shrunk, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not, I swear. Dan’s a good guy, and you’ll like him.”
“Tell me about him.”
“He had a brother, Mark Shea, who was a psychiatrist here; he was murdered by Barbara’s sister.”
“Oh, yeah, your sister-in-law. I remember.”
“She had been dead for a year when Barbara and I married.”