Clint Faraday Mysteries Collection B :This Job is Murder Collector's Edition (24 page)

“
I checked with a friend in Santiago on
the dead people. Their deaths were ordered by a person in Puerto
Armuelles. Maybe the lawyer-woman. Maybe an Englishman. It is one
or the other. It may be both, but I think that is not the way it
is.”

“
So do I. I only have to know who’s
really behind it, then I’ll put an end to it, one way or
another.

“
I’m – or was – being used. THAT, I
resent, more because they assumed I’m stupid than because they
tried to use me.”

“
I do have some very small powers. You
will not believe that, but I do. I was always with it from a small
child. I can tell much about a person if I have some very personal
item.”

Clint grinned and took a plastic envelope
from his pocket. He said it was used by the person in question – or
not. If she could read anything from it she would know.

She nodded and carefully unfolded the
envelope to take the razor to touch it to her lips.

“
It is the item from a very, very evil
person. A man, not from here. He is the ... is the Englishman in
Puerto Armuelles. He plots and plans evil things. He is in fear for
his life. He is causing the death of an evil woman now. He feels
she has done something ... to kill him. He must be first. She has
been the cause of the deaths of others, but from what he did ... or
told her ... or something.

“
That is all. He has a very dark soul.
He has many fears and wants money for the money. He has much money,
but wants more.”

“
Was he the one who caused the deaths
of the people here?”

“
... I ...” She touched the razor to
her lip again for a few seconds. “This may be not total in
correctness, but ... it is mixed. He caused the deaths of ...
partners? He is angry and afraid because the first ones ... were
not supposed to die, only to ... only to supply money. It is always
money with him.

“
The maps! HE made the maps with fire
and ... acid? ... or something.”

Clint nodded. He gave her a twenty dollar
bill for a consultation fee. She grinned and touched the bill to
her lip. She looked surprised.

“
You are a good man in many ways. You
are, how do you say? Outraged that the innocent were harmed. I
think I like you. Mon! I don’t meet many people who are
honest.”

“
You know something? I think I like
you, too! Good fortune!”

Clint left and headed for Chiriqui Grande. He
would have to go to Panamá City. As he had suspected since meeting
with Goins, Goins was behind the whole sick mess – but not behind
the deaths of the Nesmiths. He would do something to take Vargas’s
end of it away. He didn’t know how to tag her for the murders of
anyone. He had no proof. What a witch said didn’t hold one gram of
weight in court.

He went on to Bocas Town, got fresh clothes,
checked everything at his house there and spent an hour over dinner
with Judi, Dave and Ben. He told them more-or-less what he’d
learned. He was just getting on the water taxi to go to the bus in
Almirante when his phone buzzed. It was Obilio.

“
Clint? We just got word that Mr. Goins
caught the bus for Panamá City in David and was dead in his seat
when they arrived at Santiago. No one knows why he
died.”

“
How long ago?” Clint asked.

“
I had the call from Jorge just five
minutes ago.”

Clint talked a couple of minutes and decided
the only difference was that he would go to Puerto Armuelles. He
told Obilio to see if Goins ate or drank anything on the bus.

So. Sweet little Elena managed to get some of
the poison to him. How? Was he so stupid he took something from his
apartment to snack on during the ride?

Obilio called and said he bought a soda from
a girl when he got on the bus. She stood by the door to the bus
selling sodas and galetas.

“
In a box or lata?” Clint
asked.

“
Box. It has a straw.”

That didn’t make much sense, but Clint let it
pass. Obilio would have an obvious answer.

What the hell! “Why does a straw make a
difference?”

“
With the straw, it’s sealed if the bus
hits a desnivel. A lata is open and will spill.”

Like he thought. Obvious.

So. She injected the drink the same way the
drinks for Valdez and Zacharia were injected with the same poison.
No doubt there about who was behind that!

How could he prove anything about Vargas?
That was going to be one hell of a problem.

Strike Three and You’re Out!

Clint thought about how he would handle this
mess. He didn’t want Vargas to get away with anything in this. She
was the one who had the Nesmiths killed.

Clint got off the bus in David and went to
the Costa Rica. Lee had assumed he would be back because of the way
he left so he went to the same room. He went to La Tipica, which is
open 24 hours, and got some shrimp apanada. Delicious. He then went
back to the Costa Rica and to bed. In the morning he went to the
bus station and headed for Puerto Armuelles. He stopped in Frontera
to talk with some friends there, then went on. When he arrived he
called Obilio and had him meet at Yola’s Restauratnt. Clint asked
what had happened since the notice that Goins was dead. Obilio
said, “Not much. Vargas wasn’t going to her office today. She was
laying low somewhere. No one knew where she was. She wouldn’t
answer calls.”

Clint sighed and asked where she lived.

“
The big house on the paved road out
onto the peninsula. The white one with bricks. She isn’t there. Her
car is gone.”

Clint wrinkled his forehead. “Where was she
when Goins left. Her office?”

“
No. She had that Indio woman to her
office with a girl. They told the girl to deliver something to
David at the bus terminal and to wait on the right bus or for
someone to come there or something. I wasn’t close enough to hear
much. They went out and she took the car and no one saw her since.
Goins left about half an hour later. He went to the bank I told you
about, then went somewhere in a taxi. I didn’t follow because there
was no taxi close.”

“
Do you know which taxi?”

“
Yes. I wrote the number.” He took a
slip of paper torn from something from his pocket and handed it to
Clint.

Clint talked another couple of minutes, then
Obilio left to go to work. Clint stayed in Yola’s Restaurant. All
the local taxis came by there all the time. Clint saw the taxi he
wanted and asked where he had taken the Englishman.

“
That Goins person? Just to Emilio’s.
By the Alba Road.”

Clint thanked him.

Where was the car? It would have to be close.
He walked around a bit, then took a taxi to drive out the Alba Road
for a short distance. The Mitsubishi was under some trees a few
blocks out. Clint had the taxi wait and went to the car. She was
behind the wheel with a bullet hole between her eyes.

So. Strike three and you’re out! Everybody
managed to kill off everybody else. Now and then things work out
pretty well! He wouldn’t have to worry about Vargas getting away
with anything. He called the police and explained enough about what
had happened for them to be able to close the case as a revenge
killing by a person who was now also dead.

Clint headed for David and the bus to Bocas.
He would like to be able to relax for a few days. Maxie, the loan
officer for the Banco Nacional de Panamá called to him when he
passed and asked what was to be done with his money. The transfer
was cancelled when Mr. Goins died and there were instructions that
any and all funds held by Mr. Goins were to be inherited by Clint
if anything happened to him within thirty days. It was more than
eight hundred fifty five thousand dollars altogether.

Clint groaned and said he would come back
next week and they could transfer it to the new hospital fund.
Maxie almost fainted. He said they could build the whole hospital
for that!

“
Then that’s what we’ll do!” Clint
agreed.

He went on and caught the bus.

Clint walked along the beach with Andres,
Moises and Dave. They watched a large cayuca going along the coast
and called their “Oye!” call. Things were peaceful. Dave was going
along the beach in the morning to take up his classification
studies again. They’d discussed the murders as much as they would.
It was in the past and didn’t really concern the comarca. Life
there would go on as always.

“
We are going to go to the mountain
tomorrow evening for the reading of the signs. Would you care to
come along?” Moises asked.

Clint thought about it a few seconds.

“
I’ll pass.”

Clint Faraday Mystery #9

Follow the Blood

© 2011 & 2013 by C. D. Moulton

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblances
to persons, living or dead, or events is purely coincidental unless
otherwise stated.

Clint is called by Sergio Sanchez, a good
friend with the Policía Nacionál in Bocas del Toro to help with a
case of murder among some people he was having some trouble with.
The trail leads to another murder, earlier, in Costa Rica.
Investigating that leads to yet another in Mexico.

Is it a serial killer of some kind – or is
there a very understandable motive?

Contents

Strange Group

Deadly Trail

Follow the Blood

Time Out!

1+1 = 9

Weirder Yet

An Answer or
Two

Times Past

Manipulating the
Manipulators

News Flash

Follow the Blood

Strange Group

Clint Faraday, retired detective from
Florida, USA, laid back in the hammock on his deck over Saigon Bay
on Isla Colon in Bocas del Toro, Panamá. He sipped the coffee and
waved across to Judi Lum, his attractive nextdoor neighbor. She had
known him in Florida and met him again in Bocas. Clint had found
her to be very useful in the detective work he sort of fell into in
Panamá. She was above average intelligent and had a way to get
information from people who didn’t know they’d given her any. She
could act the perfect airhead around people who didn’t know her and
seem not to even hear when they said things.

She waved back and went out onto her deck to
check the epiphytic plants she, Clint, and their weird musician
friend had collected. Dave was a botanist who was working on
classification of epiphytic plants in Panamá, mostly orchids, but
also rhipsalis, bromeliads, anthuriums and so forth.

He called across to ask if she wanted to go
to the Zapatillas, a group of islands in the Bocas del Toro
archipelago. She answered that she had to meet with two of the
groups she was active in concerning Bocas Town.

Clint said he didn’t really want to go
himself. He was just bored.

“
That case on the coast out of Chiriqui
Grande two weeks ago – and you’re bored already? That’s not even
reasonable!”

Clint laughed. He did get bored easily when
he wasn’t active. That was a basic reason he got in the PI business
here. The police found they could work with him very well, so he
was called in on murders and some kinds of fraud.

Speaking of which, his celular buzzed with a
call from Sergio, a friend on the police force.

“
Clint? Sanchez here.

“
Are you free at the
moment?”

“
What you got, Serg?”

“
A murder. Strange kinds of people.
Things not
quite
adding
up.”

“
Where?”

“
On the road to Changuinola north about
two kilometers from the Ojo de Agua road. They were supposedly run
off the road by a truck, but some people who were working on timber
close saw it and said there was no truck to run them
off.

“
It seems the dead one, Wilber Stenson,
wasn’t using a seat belt. The driver, Mark Stedmann, was. The car
went into a tree on the passenger side. It did a lot of damage to
that side of the car. Stenson was supposedly thrown into the
windshield where he died almost instantly from severe skull
fracture and brain damage.”

Clint took that in and said, “And?”

“
The wound wasn’t from that flat a
surface. The blood has been smeared onto the windshield in a
strange manner.”

“
Hmm.`Has been smeared’ on the
glass?”

“
Uh-huh. I didn’t let on that we
third-world pretend Keystone Kops would even note such
things.”

“
You watch too many of those old
movies,” Clint accused with a laugh. “Almirante?”

“
I’ll have the truck at the water
taxi.”

“
I’ll come over in my own boat. At the
end?”

“
Fine.”

Clint sighed, then told himself he was bored
so don’t complain if someone has something to break the
boredom.

He called to Judi to say he was on the way to
the mainland and didn’t know when he would get back. Keep an eye on
things.

“
Case?”

“
Looks like it.”