Death Benefits (A Martin Billings Story Book 2)

by Ed Teja

  When she finished, she smiled at me with a warm and inviting grin that sent a tingle through some of my most sensitive places.

  I was just about to suggest that she have dinner with me when she said, "I have to catch my bus."

  She turned away and drifted (by my eyes) to the nearby bus stop leaving behind the delicious aroma of her perfume and me wondering if the inviting smile was a real invitation or just part of her persona that I was allowed to see now that I wasn't some stranger.

  Either way, as she left me standing there, my unspoken invitation to dinner in my throat, I felt like an idiot. Or perhaps more like an actor who has the right script but can't read.

  The night was young, and I wasn't quite so young anymore. I thought about going and getting Walker's car. I had decided I would need to return to Santa Fe and talk with the fishermen on my own.

  I hoped that one might have seen something more of Walker & Co than they had volunteered to so far. I was sure that their memories would improve remarkably once the authorities had stopped snooping around.

  They weren't ready yet though. I figured that it would be smart to wait a couple of days and, if no new information popped up, I'd show up on the beach with a bottle of Anise to warm their hearts, and chat about the stupid gringo boat that burned on the beach.

  Anise is a very cheap, strong, and very popular liquor among the fishermen. With a bottle in hand and some in our stomachs, we could casually reminisce about the boat on the beach. I'd either learn something useful or hear a bunch of stories the fishermen made up to keep the booze flowing.

  Either way, it would be more entertaining than most of the options I faced.

  The hotel room that I'd chosen sat in the heart of the city, not far from the beach. Puerto La Cruz is not particularly large, as cities go, so it was a pleasant walk from the office.

  With no particular direction that might be profitable to go in, walking to the hotel seemed a good idea.

  It had been an odd and frustrating day on a number of fronts. Between the here I was at and the there I wanted to be, were several decent restaurants. A nice walk in the balmy late afternoon and a bite to eat sounded great.

  Then I could drop in and chat with Simon, and if a pretty girl came in, I'd make an early evening of it and hope that the next day was more productive— whatever that meant.

  # # #

  Simon listened attentively when I told him what happened at Santa Fe. I gave him a shorter version of the story than I had James, which he liked. The only part that interested him was what was going on when we found the boat.

  Even then, it was disappointing that he showed no interest in the story of Rudy and I drinking expensive beer and talking to the Comandante.

  "She has to be the killer," he said.

  He was talking about the woman with the camera.

  "Why?" I asked. "A gringa passing by all that activity would be likely to stop and see what was going on. She might take photos for a lot of reasons, even to show friends back home. She could be making big prints and framing them to put on the wall in her cubicle in her office in Germany."

  His eyebrows almost popped up. "She is German?"

  "I don't know. I made that up for effect."

  He sipped his martini thoughtfully. "That scenario is possible but far too coincidental for my tastes. She might also have wished to record her handiwork to show someone, such as the person who employed her for the hit."

  "Someone," I repeated. "That doesn't sound promising. And who would put out on a hit on Walker besides your boss? And wouldn't you handle that?"

  He smiled. "Well, who gains by Walker's death?"

  "Ah, back to the recipient of the death benefits again." Given my limited knowledge of his life, I could draw up a shortlist. "His wife gets his insurance and the buyout money, and she is, or was, an unhappy wife. My friend James gets shed of him, although he still has to pay out the money. Even I gain."

  "And how is that?"

  "If he is dead, I can go home. Get back to work. At least I can once I settle the business details."

  "Your friend doesn't have key man insurance on his partner?"

  "What's key man insurance?"

  "A policy that covers the buyout of the spouse of the partner who dies first."

  "I don't know. I've never heard of it."

  "It's common practice. If they have it, then Walker's death would mean your friend was off the hook for that money and would terminate the business right away."

  I rubbed my chin. James hadn't said anything about a policy like that, but it was the kind of thing he would have. He was a careful man. Him not telling me didn't mean much though. I figured I should ask him about it later. Maybe I should insure Ugly Bill.

  "Why would he send me down her if he was hiring an assassin to take care of the situation for him?"

  Simon shrugged. "As a cover, to make it look like it wouldn't be him? Maybe just to cover his bets; of course, he'd be happy for whichever happened first. Maybe for a reason we can't know. We don't think he knew about the money on the boat."

  I didn't care much for Simon adding James to the list of suspects, but he had a point about James having a motive.

  "If we are being thorough, then we need to put bandidos on the list," I said.

  "We do?"

  "The Comandante thinks the culprits were bandidos. He seems rather convinced."

  Simon laughed. "He says that because that would be convenient for him. He can extort money from the local bandidos to eliminate them as suspects and not have to do any real work."

  "And you disagree with the official forces of law and order?"

  "Yes. As you pointed out, that theory has a couple of holes in it. First, why would bandidos burn good things that could be sold for real money? They might burn a hulk, but not before they stripped it. Even then, why burn it?"

  "I know what you mean," I said, reluctantly. "But I'm puzzled by the burning. I don't see how anyone benefits from it. It doesn't make sense for bandidos to do it, but who would want it burnt. I mean, if I was going to have a man killed on his boat and wanted to cast suspicion to the wind, sure I'd be happy to make it look like bandidos did it. But that would mean leaving it floating, with all the valuable gear stripped off it. If I needed the world to know he was dead, to collect insurance money, for instance, or as some kind of warning, then I'd make damn sure his easily identifiable body was left there for all to see. Burning the boat and making it so hard to identify anyone who might have been on it complicates things and doesn't seem to provide any benefit."

  Simon pursed his lips for a moment. "Well, that assumes they thought the scheme through carefully and that the killer was on the same page as you. If it was a hired killer, say that woman you saw—she might think that burning the boat obscured things wonderfully. Suppose she felt confident that no one saw her get on board or swim ashore. If she was paid to make a hit, she does it and burns the thing, covering her tracks. Then she takes photos to show her employer."

  I winced at his automatic assumption that the woman I'd seen was the killer. It seemed likely, or at least possible since she matched the watchman's description of the woman who got on the boat at the marina, but I wasn't convinced yet.

  "Why would she do that? Instead of slipping away unnoticed she sets the boat on fire? That would attract attention. In fact, it did attract attention—and lots of it. Smoke billowing out of the boat right at the moment she wanted to escape doesn't fit. Besides, the photos don't prove Walker was on board. If she is a sneaky underworld type, then the employer might wonder if she did it because Walker paid her to let him go and she needs to pretend he's dead."

  Simon shrugged. "She might have photos of the bodies for that. But suppose, for a moment, that she killed the couple on board. It's early still, and she wants to wait until closer to dawn to make her escape. She decides to look around for anything valuable—give herself a bonus. Let's say she opens a safe or lockbox on the boat
and finds it filled with lovely money. Whoever hired her hadn't mentioned this money, so she can assume that this person doesn't know about it. Of course, someone will know about it, but if she burns the boat, then they can't be sure the money wasn't burned as well. It isn't foolproof, but it provides enough uncertainty to give her some space and time."

  I realized that I hadn't given the money much thought. I imagine that's because I saw the money as Simon's problem, which it was. But it was also a factor that had to be considered.

  "That much is true, I suppose. I forgot about the money for a moment. It does make things wonderfully cloudy if you can't tell your boss if the money burned up along with a stupid boat named George when a paid killer set it afire to cover her tracks. We can't even tell if a robbery or an attempt to get the money went bad or if a hit turned into a robbery."

  Simon smiled. "Precisely. So, just playing with alternative ideas, suppose for a moment that his wife wanted him dead."

  "Just playing with ideas, I'll go along with that."

  "Let's assume that she doesn't know about the cash. Apparently, they didn't talk much about important matters. So, we can postulate that, having had enough of him, she decides to opt for a permanent separation funded by his insurance money."

  "Why not just divorce him? Why risk killing him?"

  Simon laughed. "Money. We do know that Walker was behind on his bills. If she divorced him, it probably wouldn't be an ideal economic solution for either of them. And she didn't know he was about to come into a settlement for the business. She can collect insurance, sell his boat and car, and be in decent shape."

  "Fair enough, then."

  "So, you think she hires a killer to take a ride with him and his girlfriend. A few days ahead of that, she leaves town for Margarita to make sure she has an alibi, in case anyone ever asks for one. Meantime, Walker has decided that the cash in his safe provides him with the means to live a better life. Then he goes off for a sail, taking it with him, and not intending to come back."

  "I hate to keep coming back to my own vested interest in Walker," I said, "but why is he running off without the money from the buyout? Why is he leaving money on the table?"

  "He probably isn't. Possibly he was going to call on Monday and arrange the meeting, as you suggested. But he wants one foot halfway out the door so that he doesn't have to let his wife know about his new affluence. And, if my boss got wind of the business closing down, his desire to see his money would only intensify."

  "So, you think Evelyn Walker's hired killer does the job and then sails the boat to Santa Fe where he or she burns it?"

  "It's possible."

  "Why does she burn it?"

  "There are only two options. The first is that she finds the money and burns the boat so no one can be sure she did; the other is that she does it to eliminate any evidence of the killing. Perhaps Evelyn neglects to mention she needs Walker identifiably dead when she specifies the job. In that case, unfortunately, the woman destroys all that lovely money."

  "I can't make that feel right," I said.

  He laughed. "Let me see. A man disappears. We, you, find his boat burned to a crisp with the suggestion that the occupants might have been murdered. You learn from me that some high-powered people are curious as to where Walker may have gone, seeing as he owes a great deal of money and an even larger amount of money that belongs to those people is missing. You mull this over in your inimitable style over a few drinks and come up with the feeling that something doesn't feel right?"

  I smirked. "Simon, your powers of deduction are startling."

  He put his hand on my shoulder. "Irony is not particularly useful in the pursuit of enlightenment. This is especially true when you aren't good at it. Irony requires a deft touch."

  "But this doesn't fit together."

  "Actually, I think we have defined the problem rather succinctly, you just don't see it. Someone in this wide world must know where he is, either because they helped him get away, or because they did him in. But no one answering that description has appeared on the scene, only ghosts of their presence. If the mystery woman is the one seen at the marina, getting on the boat, you and she are the only ones at the scene with even a hint of an interest in Walker."

  "But how many players are in the game? I've lost count. I'm starting to feel like half of Venezuela is either watching everything I do or is busy hunting Walker."

  Simon ticked off names on his fingers. "The players I can think of include you, me, the mystery woman, my employer and other possible minions, Mrs. Walker, unknown bandidos, and various and sundry members of the Guardia Nacional."

  "I'm willing to accept that I didn't do it," I said.

  "If Señor Walker was actually done in by run-of-the-mill bandidos we might legitimately be concerned that the Guardia was also involved. I don't think they would do things on their own. Their role would be to not catch the bad guys." He smiled. "They are very good at not catching those they are paid to not catch, and they tend to go with their strengths."

  He rubbed his chin. "I don't see that is likely. I agree with you that bandidos wouldn't burn the boat." Then he smiled. "We won't count that idea out, but I feel we can safely put our attention on more profitable angles."

  "While we wait for the authorities to determine if Walker was on board, I better talk to Evelyn Walker. I want to see what she knows or will admit to knowing. I need to clarify the things we think we know. The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised to run into other complications unrelated to anything we know about now."

  "So, you are off to Margarita?"

  "No," I said. "No need. The cavalry is bringing Evelyn to Puerto La Cruz."

  "The cavalry?"

  "The forces of good. The closest thing known to a true superhero in our troubled times."

  Simon looked perplexed. I was enjoying confusing him, breaking through his bored and jaded facade.

  "What are you talking about?" he demanded.

  I laughed. Although Simon's sense of humor was sharp, it operated within a narrow range and he had run aground on the shoals of the world of Ugly Bill. "She is hitching a ride back to town on my boat with Ugly Bill." I got up. "I need to get down to the anchorage and greet them."

  "He raised one eyebrow."

  "Ugly Bill?"

  "And never did a man deserve his name more."

  He shrugged. "Let me know if you learn anything."

  "And you do the same," I said.

  And so, an uneasy partnership was formed.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Finding missing persons

  Evelyn Walker had gone to Isla de Margarita on an airplane and stayed in a fine hotel. She returned to Puerto La Cruz on an inter-island freighter with accommodations that made a person of her attitudes long for the comfort of steerage class.

  "She wasn't happy with us," Bill told me when he called me at the office. He'd anchored offshore, and brought her ashore in the dinghy, leaving Sammy to stand watch. "I'm taking her home and then coming back to the marina to intimidate Pierre and have a beer."

  "I'll meet you there," I told him.

  "Me too," Consuela told me. "Sitting around all day is thirsty work, and I want to meet this Bill."

  I hesitated.

  "By the way, the Guardia called and said that there were two bodies on the boat. Well, not exactly bodies, but whatever is left of bodies after a big fire."

  "A mess," I said.

  "I need a beer," she said.

  So, we walked to the marina. By the time we arrived, Bill was ensconced on a stool, facing Pierre and a tall, cold beer. He brightened considerably at the sight of Consuela and she seemed entranced. We sat either side of Bill and I ordered us each a beer.

  "What did the lady Walker have to say? Did she tell you anything?"

  He laughed. "She said almost nothing. You do know, of course, that the colloquial term uptight is rooted in a real body image. The woman is uptight in the purest
sense. Her body language was all pulled in. She is a poster girl for tension."

  "She is a bitch," Consuela put in, and Bill smiled. "That is another way of saying it."

  "Had she known her husband was missing?"

  "Not that she let on, but the news wasn't what had her tense. She made it clear that the idea of touching anything on the ship that she didn't absolutely have to would offend her beyond belief. I'm certain she thinks we deliberately smeared all the surfaces in grease just before she came on board. Good thing it is a short cruise from there to here. I hate to think of how much stress needing to sit down might have produced if it had been an overnight run. She might have had a heart attack."

  "We don't smear grease on all the surfaces? I could have sworn we did."

  "Not all of them. I know it's been a while since you did any actual sailing, but I've gotten into the habit of restricting the grease to mostly just the moving parts. Of course, we follow the Grenadian directive. 'Grease and oil or 'ting will spoil.' And there are surfaces we wipe our hands on. But, in my opinion, everything just seems greasy."

  "We follow that ancient wisdom because it is correct."

  "She might not have been willing to come back at all, much less on HARM but for the fortuitous announcement by hotel management that her credit cards were at the limit and she would need to fork over cash to stay longer. She seemed to be having a nice time for herself. She had lots of friends. If her plastic had still had any life in it at all I am certain she wouldn't have accepted our offer of free transportation."

  "Some people have no class," I said.

  "You two have much in common," Bill said.

  I gave him my best puzzled look. I knew he was waiting for it. "How is that?"

  "That was exactly what she said," Bill laughed.

  Regardless of whether the mode of transport pleased her, I was glad that Evelyn Walker was back at her home, close at hand. Although I wasn't looking forward to it, I needed to be able to talk to her face to face.