Santa Fe Dead

47

ALEX REESE WAS sitting at his desk the following morning when the phone rang. “Alex Reese.”

“Detective Reese? This is Dr. Anthony DeMarco in Los Angeles, returning your call. I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier, but I’ve had a busy week.”

“Thank you for calling, Dr. DeMarco. Do you own a Beech Bonanza?” He gave him the registration number.

“Yes, I do.”

“Have you recently flown your airplane to Santa Fe?”

“No, I haven’t, but I lease the airplane to the Compton Flying Club at Compton Airport, and one of their members may have rented it and flown it there. I’ll give you their number.”

Reese wrote down the number. “Thank you very much, Dr. DeMarco,” he said, then hung up and phoned the club.

“Compton Flying Club. This is Margie,” a woman’s voice said.

“Good morning. My name is Detective Alex Reese, from the Santa Fe, New Mexico, Police Department.”

“What can I do for you?”

Reese gave her the relevant dates. “Did you rent Dr. Anthony DeMarco’s Beech Bonanza to a member that weekend?”

“Hang on, let me check the log.” She came back. “Yes, we rented it to a member named Jack Cato.”

Reese’s heart leapt, then he had another thought. He gave her some earlier dates.

“Yes, we rented the Bonanza to Mr. Cato then, too.”

“Were you there when Mr. Cato took off?”

“Not the second time; he asked me to fuel the airplane and leave the key under the nose wheel. But the first weekend I was there when they left.”

“Someone was with him?”

“Yes, another man.”

“Do you know the other man’s name?”

“Jack called him Grif. I don’t know his last name.”

“Would you be kind enough to write me a letter to that effect?” Reese gave her his address, then hung up. He went immediately to the D.A.’s office.

Bob Martínez waved Reese to a chair. “What’s up?”

“You’re not going to believe this: Jack Cato and Grif Edwards killed Donna Wells and her son, and Cato fired the shot that struck Susannah Wilde.”

“They did both?”

“Well, I think Cato worked alone on the Wilde thing, but Edwards was with him for the Wells murders. I have a witness that saw them take off together in the Bonanza from Compton Airport, in L.A. I don’t have a witness yet who saw them in Santa Fe, but I’ve got one at the airport who puts Cato in the Bonanza the second time. She made him from a movie he was in, one of Don Wells’s pictures.”

“This is fantastic work, Alex, but I don’t get the Susannah Wilde thing. What connection does Wells have with her?”

“Well, they’re both in the movie business; maybe they know each other that way. That’s going to take some more investigating.”

“Oh, another thing,” Martínez said. “There’s a break in the murder case of Donna’s first husband. Wells’s alibi for that occasion now has a crack in it.”

“Wonderful! Will you get me a murder warrant for Jack Cato and Grif Edwards? I’ll get the LAPD to pick them up, and then we’ll extradite them.”

“I’ll not only get that warrant; I’ll get you extradition papers, too. I want you to go back to L.A. and be in on the arrest; it’ll look good in the papers.”

“What about Don Wells? Shouldn’t I pick him up, too?”

“We’ve got a problem there,” Martínez said. “We can connect Wells to Cato and Edwards, but we don’t yet have any evidence that he hired them to kill his wife and son. We’re going to have to break Cato or Edwards-or both-to get that.”

“There are also the two girls who gave Cato and Edwards their alibi. I’ve learned that one of them is sleeping with Wells, and has been for some time.”

That will sound good at trial, but we don’t have enough to arrest the girls yet. Maybe Cato and Edwards will give them up, too.”

“I’ll question them again after we’ve arrested Cato and Edwards. The problem is, when Wells hears about it, he might run. God knows, he has the money.”

“Yeah, that could be a problem. I’ll request LAPD surveillance on him.” Martínez looked at his watch. “Can you make the eleven o’clock plane from Albuquerque?”

“No, I have to stop at home and pick up some things. I’ll make the three o’clock plane, though.”

“I’ll have the warrants and extradition papers for you in an hour,” Martínez said. “I’ll get the LAPD to get search warrants for their homes and places of work, too.”

REESE LEFT, and Martínez dictated the warrant and extradition details to his secretary, called a judge and sent his secretary to him for his signature. He called the L.A. Chief of Police and requested surveillance on Don Wells, then he called the LAPD office for search warrants. Then he made another call.

“Ed Eagle.”

“Ed, it’s Bob Martínez.”

“Morning, Bob.”

“I have some news. Call it disclosure.”

“Yes.”

“You recall the two stuntmen who worked for Don Wells, the ones we questioned in L.A.?”

“Yes.”

“We can put them in Santa Fe at the time of the murders of Donna Wells and her son.”

“Lots of people come to Santa Fe for a weekend, Bob, especially from L.A.”

“There’s more, Ed.”

“What more?”

“We can put one of them, Jack Cato, in Santa Fe at the time of the shooting of Susannah Wilde.”

There followed a stunned silence.

“That doesn’t make any sense, Bob. Wells has no motive to kill Susannah; they don’t even know each other. No, it was Barbara who sent the shooter to Susannah’s house.”

“Well, it’s looking like the same shooter as the one who committed the Wells killings.”

“Then we’ve got two different people hiring the same hit man.”

“Happens all the time, Ed. The pros will work for anybody.”

“Are you arresting Cato and Edwards?”

“Yes, the warrants are being issued now. Alex Reese is flying to L.A. this afternoon to serve them and make the arrests.”

“What about my client? Are you arresting him?”

“No, we have insufficient evidence for that. On the other hand, if he tries to run, we’ll bring him in. You might convey that to him, Ed.”

“I’ll pass on the message. Thanks for calling.”