Santa Fe Dead

42

DETECTIVE ALEX REESE had the weird feeling that he was starting a new investigation that was really an old investigation. Granted, the circumstances of the two cases were very different; granted, the weapons used were different; granted, he had not the slightest evidence to connect them. Still, they felt connected.

He had two people checking the airline schedules for likely killers- either one male or two males traveling together-and for forty-eight hours before the murder there had been a dozen single males traveling, and every one of them had checked out as legit.

Reese was driving in to work when he passed Airport Road, and he had a sudden thought. He made a quick U-turn and drove to the airport. He parked and walked into Santa Fe Jet, and approached the young woman behind the counter. “Hi,” he said, showing her his badge. “Did you work this past weekend?”

“Yep, one weekend a month,” she said.

“Do you remember any general aviation aircraft coming in with a single male pilot or two males?”

“Well, let’s see,” she said. “Best way would be to go through the fuel tickets to remind me. Here’s a Learjet with two guys, in from New York; here’s a Bonanza with one guy, in from Austin, Texas; here’s a guy in from Albuquerque in a Cessna 182. Everything else was groups, I think. The guy from Austin was kind of a hoot: a standard-issue Texan with a big hat and a big moustache. He looked kind of familiar, like that actor, Sam Elliot?”

“Are you sure it wasn’t Sam Elliot?”

She flipped through the fuel tickets. “No, he was a Carl Timmons.” She showed him the signature. “He flew in Friday night and left at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning.”

“How’d he pay for his fuel?”

“In cash. That was kind of unusual.”

“How often do people pay in cash?”

“Never, since I’ve been here. It’s always a check or credit card.”

“Did he rent a car?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And how’d he pay for that?”

“Again, in cash.”

“Where’s the car?”

She looked at the list. “It’s been rented again, not due back for a week.”

Reese made a note of the address in Austin of Carl Timmons and of the tail number of the Bonanza.

“Has Timmons ever been in here before?”

“Not that I know of.”

“How about the airplane?”

“Could be; we get lots of Bonanzas-very popular airplane.”

“Is there anything else you can think of about Timmons? How was he dressed?”

“Like a cowboy: jeans, western shirt, cowboy boots. Alligator boots, come to think of it. Those things are expensive.”

Reese handed her his card. “If you remember anything else about the guy, will you give me a call? It’s very important.”

“Sure, be glad to.”

REESE LEFT THE airport and drove back to his office. He went online to the website of the Federal Aviation Administration and checked the tail number of the Bonanza: It was registered to an Anthony DeMarco, M.D., of a Brentwood address in L.A. He found the office number of the doctor and phoned him.

“Dr. DeMarco’s office,” a woman’s voice said.

“Good morning, may I speak with Dr. DeMarco, please?”

“Who’s calling?”

“This is Detective Alex Reese of the Santa Fe, New Mexico, police department.”

“I’m afraid Dr. De Marco is in surgery all day today,” she said. “I can take your number and ask him to call you when he gets a break.”

“Yes, please,” Reese said. He gave the woman his number and cell number. “Any time of day. By the way, what sort of medicine does Dr. DeMarco practice?”

“He’s a cosmetic surgeon; he operates three days a week, and this is one of them.”

“Thank you. I look forward to hearing from him.” Reese hung up and went back to work.

JACK CATO WAS shooting his first scene on a new movie, so he rose early, shaved and showered and had breakfast. The mailman arrived just as he was leaving the house, so Cato took the mail inside. A fat manila envelope was among the bills, and he took a peek inside. What he saw caused a wave of relief and elation to wash over him. He put the envelope into his briefcase and closed and locked it.

He was about to leave the house when the doorbell rang. He looked out the window and saw what appeared to be an unmarked police car. He put his briefcase into a drawer of a chest in the living room, then answered the door. A man and a woman stood there.

“Good morning,” the woman said. “I’m Detective Lucy Dixon, LAPD, and this is Detective Watts.” She handed him a document. “This is a federal search warrant to search your mailbox.”

Cato looked at the document. “Well, okay, but I’ve already taken the mail out. You want to see it?”

“Thank you, yes.”

“Then come inside.” He led them into his little home office and pointed to the desk. “There you go, that’s everything that came. You just missed the mailman.”

The woman went through all the envelopes. “Are you sure this is everything, Mr. Cato?”

“That’s it. Mostly bills, I’m afraid.”

Dixon opened each envelope and perused the contents. She was particularly interested in the bill from GMAC. “Mr. Cato, are you acquainted with a Mrs. Eleanor Keeler, widow of one Walter Keeler?”

“Nope. I mean, I know who Walter Keeler was, because I use some equipment he made, and I read about his car accident a while back.”

“You’ve never met Mrs. Keeler?”

“Not to my knowledge. A lot of people come on tours through the movie studio where I work, so I suppose she could have come through.”

“Which studio?”

“Centurion. That reminds me, I’m shooting this morning, so I gotta go. Anything else I can do to help you?”

“I guess not. We’ll be here again tomorrow morning, so don’t open your mailbox; we’ll do it for you.”

“Okay, no problem. Can you tell me what this is about?”

“I’m afraid not.” The two officers thanked him and left. He gave them a moment to get away, then retrieved his briefcase, put it into the toolbox bolted to his truck, locked it and drove to work.

Cato knew exactly what they were looking for: the money. How the hell could they know about that? He would have to be very careful with his spending. One good thing, though: Now he knew the name of the woman who had hired him. That might come in handy.

DIXON AND WATTS were driving back to their station, empty-handed.

“Anything of interest in his mail?” Watts asked.

“I thought it was interesting that there were no past-due balances on any of his bills,” she said, “and his bill from GMAC showed he had recently been three months behind on his truck payments, but he had brought the account up to date in the past week or so. Still, he had only a little over three hundred bucks in his bank account. I think we should pull a credit report on Mr. Cato.”