by Stuart Woods
Wolf hung up and turned his attention back to Mark. His eyes were glazed. “Mark, can you hear me?” he asked.
Mark’s eyes came back into focus, and he seemed to recognize Wolf. He nodded.
“Can you tell me who did this?”
Mark’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. Wolf couldn’t read his lips.
“Try, Mark, try hard. I can’t do anything to help you, and I have to know who did this.”
Mark did try harder, and this time Wolf could understand the words. “She…did…” he managed to say.
“Who, Mark? Who did it?”
Mark tried again and failed. His eyes began to lose their focus. He jerked in a sharp breath and it came out in a rattle. Wolf saw his pupils dilate. Mark Shea was dead.
Wolf could hear a distant siren—no, two sirens. He sat back on the floor and took his friend’s hand. He was still sitting there when the sheriff and the ambulance arrived.
CHAPTER
33
Ed Eagle was dozing when the phone rang. He groaned with the effort of answering it. “Hello?”
“Ed, it’s Wolf Willett.”
“Merry Christmas, Wolf.”
“Not anymore. I’m at Mark Shea’s place, and he’s been shot.”
“How bad?”
“Dead. He was alive when I got here; he died a couple of minutes later.”
“Were you first on the scene?”
“Yes. We had an appointment at six o’clock.”
Eagle glanced at his watch: ten past six. “Have you called the police?”
“The sheriff. I can hear the sirens now.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Eagle said. “Wait until I arrive before you talk to them.”
“All right, but hurry.”
Eagle grabbed a coat, headed for the BMW, then changed his mind and got into the Bronco; with new snow on the ground he might need the four-wheel drive. He drove faster than he ever had in snow, and he nearly lost it a couple of times. It was dark now, and his headlights brightly illuminated the white road ahead of him.
Tano Road was treacherous, and he could see that other cars ahead of him had skidded. The sheriff’s cars, he thought; they had been in a hurry too. He skidded through Mark Shea’s gates and drove toward the flashing lights. Three sheriff’s cars and an ambulance were there when he pulled up in front of the psychiatrist’s office.
“Just hold it right there, Mr. Eagle,” a deputy said, moving in front of the door and holding up a hand.
“Fuck you,” Eagle said, shouldering the man aside. “My client’s in there.” He strode into the office. Half a dozen men were gathered around the sofa at the end of the room, all looking down. Wolf Willett was one of them. So was the sheriff, Matt Powers. Eagle nodded at the man. “Matt,” he said.
“What’re you doing here, Ed?” the sheriff asked. “This is a crime scene, and you’re not welcome.”
“Let’s start all over, Matt. I represent Wolf Willett, and he’s not talking to you until I say so. Am I still unwelcome?”
The sheriff looked at the floor again.
“Yes, I am,” Wolf replied.
“All right, Matt, Mr. Willett is going to answer all your questions, and I’m going to be here while he does it.”
The sheriff glowered at Eagle. “Okay. Let’s all go sit down over here.” He directed Wolf to a sofa at the other end of the room.
Eagle ignored them for the moment and went to look at Mark Shea’s body; he was appalled at the amount of blood on the floor. He turned and joined the sheriff and his client.
Wolf began telling his story, and Eagle listened closely, ready to keep him out of trouble, if necessary. It was not necessary; Wolf was lucid and articulate. He stopped at the point when he called the sheriff’s office.
“So,” the sheriff said, “Dr. Shea said that ‘she did it’?”
“Not exactly,” Wolf replied. “I said, ’Mark, who did this?’ and he replied, with some difficulty, ’She did.’ There was a pause between the two words; he was struggling to say it.”
Eagle broke in. “So he didn’t actually say that a woman shot him?”
“Sounded like that to me,” the sheriff said. “Mr. Willett asked him who did it, and he said, ’She did.’”
“Maybe,” Wolf said. “How can we be sure exactly what he meant?”
“Why were you coming to see Dr. Shea?” the sheriff asked.
“We talked yesterday, and Mark asked me to come over at six; said he wanted to talk to me alone.”
“Did he give you any indication what he wanted to talk about?”
“He said he wanted to tell me some things, wanted to get something off his chest, words to that effect. He sounded worried and depressed. That was very unusual for Mark.”
“Sheriff?”
The group on the sofa turned and looked at the deputy standing in the doorway; he was gingerly holding a rifle.
“We found this in the snow, a few yards off the front walk; looks like somebody slung it over there.”
“Bring it over here,” the sheriff said, and watched the deputy as he approached. “Looks like an old Winchester,” he said, looking at the rifle without touching it.
“It’s a Model 73,” Wolf said. “Mark bought it late last year—a Christmas present to himself, he said.”
The deputy sniffed the barrel. “Been fired,” he said.
The sheriff turned back to Wolf. “Mr. Willett, do you have any objection to a test to see if you’ve recently fired a weapon?”
“None at all,” Wolf said. “Under the circumstances, I’d be grateful for such a test.”
“We’ll do that in a few minutes,” the sheriff said. “Do you know if Dr. Shea owned any other firearms?”
“No, he didn’t—not to my knowledge, anyway. He had an absolute hatred of handguns; he signed ads in the New York Times, he wrote letters to Senate committees—he was very strong on handgun control.”
“And yet he bought a rifle.”
“It was only a decoration to him, I think. I doubt if he ever fired it; I’m astonished that he would even have ammunition for the thing.”
“He owned a rifle, but he didn’t shoot,” the sheriff said, as if such a thing were unheard of.
“Lots of people in Santa Fe have western relics—like that,” Wolf said, pointing.
The others turned and looked at an old silver-trimmed saddle, resting on a sawhorse across the room.
“He didn’t ride, either,” Wolf said.
“I see,” the sheriff replied.
Wolf spoke again. “There’s something else.”
“What’s that?”
“Just as I left the house to come here, Mark called and asked if I still owned a pistol—asked me to bring it with me.”
“Did you ask him why?”
“No. I planned to when I got here.”
“Did you bring the pistol?”
Wolf dug the automatic out of his pocket and handed it over.
The sheriff sniffed at the barrel. “Doesn’t seem to have been fired recently.”
“It’s never been fired at all,” Wolf said. “I bought it at a gun shop out on Airport Road right after I built my house here. I’ve never had occasion to shoot it.”
The sheriff expertly fieldstripped the weapon and checked it carefully; he reassembled it and handed it back to Wolf. “It’s as you say. There’s still some packing grease in the barrel. How did Dr. Shea know you owned a pistol?”
“We were arguing about gun control once, and I told him I owned one,“ Wolf said. “But there’s something else: When I drove out here, there was only one set of tracks ahead of me from the time I turned onto County Road 84. The tracks turned into here, and there was a set of footprints between the parking place and the front door.”
“Let’s have a look,” the sheriff said. He led the group outside and played a flashlight around. “Shit,” he said. There were now many tire tracks and footprints around the house, where his department’s cars and men had left them.
Wolf took the flashlight from the sheriff and pointed it at Mark’s Range Rover. “Look over here,” he said, leading the group to the parking area. He pointed. “The tracks weren’t to the house, they were from the house. Somebody walked out of the house—only one set of footprints—got into a car parked here, and drove away.”
The sheriff took the flashlight back. “We’ve got a good print right here, from when he got into the car.” He called out to a deputy. “Jack, get over here and take a cast of this footprint, and measure it. I want one of the tire track, too.” He turned to the others. “I got me a good footprint man.”
Eagle spoke for the first time. “Matt, it looks like whoever did this spent the night here—or most of it, anyway. It started snowing at my house just after midnight, and it stopped around seven this morning, while I was having breakfast. That means your man—or woman—got here before it started and left after it stopped; otherwise, there’d be tire tracks coming and going. Wolf, is there a bedroom in the office building?”
“No,” Wolf replied. “Wait a minute, there’s a back door and a walk leading to the main house. Maybe there are some footprints there.”
The group walked back into the office and Wolf led them to the back door. He switched on the outside lights and opened the door. The walkway leading up to the main house had been shoveled nearly clean.
“I’ll see if we can get some kind of footprint from what’s left of the snow on the walk, and we’ll go over the main house for fingerprints, too,” the sheriff said.
They went back inside, and a deputy met them. “Sheriff,” he said, “we’re making casts of those prints, but I can give you an idea right now.”
“Shoot,” the sheriff said.
“The tires are Goodyear snow and mud tires; they’re standard on half a dozen different new four-wheel-drive vehicles—Cherokees, Broncos, et cetera—and every tire shop in town carries them. The footprints are from some kind of snow boot; I’ve seen ’em before, and they’re common, too.”
“Man or woman?” the sheriff asked.
“They’re about nine and a half inches long, so the size would work for either a large woman or a man. I stood next to them and compared ’em with the depth of my tracks; they’re shallower—I weigh a hundred and eighty; whoever wore the boots, I’d put at one-thirty to one-sixty.”
“Good work, boy.”
“Oh, and something else; the Winchester had been wiped real good. No prints.”
The sheriff nodded. “Mr. Willett, how much do you weigh?”
“A hundred and sixty pounds.”
“Uh-huh. Let me have a look at your shoe soles.”
Wolf displayed a leather boot with a Vibram sole.
“Uh-huh, a different boot from the print.”
Another deputy called the sheriff aside and spoke with him briefly.
The sheriff returned. “Your story checks out with a lady at your house,” he said to Wolf. “About the time you left, I mean. Considering what time you called us and the time we got here and the car tracks and footprints, I think we can rule you out as a suspect, Mr. Willett.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Wolf said.
“So am I,” Ed Eagle echoed.
“I’ll admit, I’m kinda disappointed,” the sheriff said. “You looked real good there for a while, considering you’ve already been charged with three other murders.”
“Matt,” Eagle said, “I’d like to point out that the murders at Mr. Willett’s place have a similarity to this one, in that both were committed with weapons already on the premises—assuming that the Winchester was the weapon used here.”
“That’s a good point, Ed.”
“Can I speak to you in private for a moment, Matt?” Eagle took the sheriff aside. “Are you entirely satisfied that Willett is not a suspect in this murder?”
“I believe I am,” the sheriff replied. “Of course, there could have been an accomplice who left Willett here after the shooting, but that doesn’t really make much sense.”
“I’d like to point out that Shea was one of Willett’s closest friends; Willett had been his patient at one time, and Shea had already told me that he’d be happy to testify on Willett’s behalf, if he’s tried on the other murders.”
“No apparent motive, then,” the sheriff said.
“What I wanted to talk to you about is, when you start talking to the press about this, I’d appreciate it if you’d go out of your way not to imply that Willett is suspected. I don’t want the papers to crucify an innocent man.”
“All right, Ed, I’ll be careful talking to the press.”
“Thanks.” Eagle rejoined Wolf. “Sheriff, is Mr. Willett free to go now?”
“I guess he is,” the sheriff replied. “I may want to talk to him again, though.”
“He’ll be available at all times,” Eagle said. He shook hands with the sheriff and led Wolf to his car. “Go on home and relax; you’re out of this one.”
Wolf got into his car, then rolled down the window. He looked thoughtful. “Ed, three of the people closest to me have been murdered now. What do you think is going on?”
Eagle shook his head. “I wish the hell I knew, my friend. But I’ll tell you this: I think you ought to have somebody up at the house with you. I can get somebody to do that.”
Wolf thought about it, then shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“All right, whatever you say, but I think it might be a good idea to keep that gun of yours handy.”
Wolf nodded, then seemed to think again for a moment. “Ed, have you seen Julia’s sister recently?”
A little chill went through Eagle. “Yes. Last night, in fact. She was at my house.”
“What time did she leave?”
“Around midnight, I think.”
“Had it started to snow yet?”
“No.”
“I just wondered,” Wolf said. He started the car and drove away, leaving Eagle staring after him.
Barbara Kennerly was a big girl, Eagle remembered—five ten and a hundred and thirty-five, maybe; she drove a Cherokee; and when he had kissed her goodnight, she had been wearing snow boots.
CHAPTER
34
Wolf drove back to Wilderness Gate on automatic pilot, numb with shock and grief. He pulled up at the house, and Jane greeted him at the door.
“What’s going on?” she whispered, indicating that Sara, who was setting the kitchen table, should not hear.
“I’ll tell you later, when we’re alone,” he whispered back.
Jane had dinner in the oven, and Wolf was surprised that it was after nine o’clock. He picked at the food while trying to make cheerful conversation with Sara.
When they had finally tucked the little girl into bed and left Flaps to guard her, Wolf poured them a drink and took Jane into the study. He took a deep breath. “There’s been another murder: Mark Shea.”
Jane nearly choked on her drink. “Is that what the sheriff’s office was on the phone about?”
“Yes. I arrived at Mark’s house and found him dying.”
“Who did it?”
“I don’t know. Nobody knows.”
“Wolf, what is going on here? I mean, how many more of your friends are going to die before this is over?”
“I don’t know, but I think it would be best if you and Sara were on the noon plane from Albuquerque tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to go and leave you in this state.”
“Thank you, love, but we don’t want Sara to know about this, and to tell you the truth, I don’t think I’m going to be fit company for anybody until this is over.”
Jane looked sad. “I’m sorry I can’t help.”
“I wish you could help, but nobody can until we find out who’s doing this and why. Believe me, I hate to see you go; these few days have been the happiest I’ve had since I left you in L.A.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” she said, kissing him.
“I don’t know what I’d have
done without you, being in this house alone at Christmas. I’m going to hate being alone again, too.”
“Well, just as long as you miss the hell out of me.”
“I will, I will.” He pulled her into his arms.
In the middle of the night, Wolf woke and couldn’t go back to sleep. He extricated himself from Jane’s arms and, careful not to wake her, got into a robe and slippers and went into the study.
The moon was high, and there was no need for a light. He poured himself a brandy and stretched out in the Eames lounge chair, looking down over a snow-covered Santa Fe gleaming in the moonlight.
He hadn’t said anything to Ed Eagle, but he felt strongly now that Mark Shea had known more about the murders of Julia, Jack, and Grafton than he had previously been willing to say. There was nothing else the psychiatrist could have meant when he said he had some things to tell Wolf, things to get off his chest.
Who would have wished the deaths of, first, his wife and his partner, then his friend and doctor? He wrestled with this for a long time, then gave up. He knew no one who was the enemy of any of them, no one who would profit from the death of any of them, let alone all of them.
He had to consider, too, whether he himself was in any danger. After all, Grafton may have died because somebody thought he was Wolf Willett. Suddenly he was frightened again. He went to the hall closet and retrieved the pistol from his coat pocket, then slipped it into the pocket of his robe. It weighed heavily there, felt odd, unnecessary. He had bought the thing while in some paranoid delusion of having to defend the house, and now it looked as though he might need it to defend his life.
He poured himself another brandy and sat down. The moon had set now, and only the quiescent lights of the town could be seen. He was tired and thought of going back to bed; instead, he dozed.
Some time later, he jerked awake. A noise had woken him—or had he dreamed it? He reconstructed the sound from his memory; it had come from the kitchen door. He got up and padded into the kitchen. The noise came again, but fainter this time. His hand closed on the pistol.
He tiptoed to the door and peeped out through the glass pane next to it. He could see nothing; he heard only the sound of a light wind through the piñon trees above the house. He grasped the knob and turned it as silently as he could. Slowly, he opened the door and stepped outside, the pistol before him.