Santa Fe Dead

8

EAGLE AND SHEA were having breakfast when Susannah, looking dazed, wandered into the kitchen. Eagle got her into a chair.

“I’m sorry about last night,” Susannah said.

“It’s all right,” Ed said.

“Had to happen,” Dan chimed in. “You can’t go through something like that without it having an effect. How do you feel?”

“Rested but a little dopey. Did you give me something?”

“No,” Dan said. “I didn’t think you needed anything.”

“I’ll make you some eggs,” Eagle said.

She picked up half of his English muffin and spread some marmalade on it. “No, thanks, this will do fine.”

Eagle gave her some juice and, when she had downed it, filled her coffee mug.

“That’s what I need,” she said, sipping the strong liquid.

“Well,” Dan said, rising, “I have appointments this morning; I’d better get going.”

“Can I come and see you?” Susannah asked.

“Of course.” He consulted a pocket diary. “How about two o’clock? I’m usually reading medical publications at that time, but any excuse not to.”

“I’ll see you at two.”

Shea gave her directions.

Eagle got up. “I’ll drop you at your car,” he said. He turned to Susannah. “Will you be all right on your own?”

“Of course. Get out of here, both of you.”

THEY GOT INTO Eagle’s car and drove down the mountain.

“She’ll be okay,” Dan said. “Last night was a good thing for her, a wake-up call.”

“I think you’re right,” Eagle said. “She’s a sturdy person.”

EAGLE SETTLED BEHIND his desk and looked at the messages waiting there. He returned a couple of calls and signed some letters, then sat alone in his office and thought for a long moment about what Dan Shea had said to him the day before. Finally, he picked up the phone and dialed a number in Santa Monica.

“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 dinnertime.”

“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.