Amaz'n Murder

by William Maltese

  Carolyne was no less astounded by Charles’ recuperative powers.

  “Carolyne, did you know that Galin knew Gordon?” Melanie asked and stabbed a piece of melon.

  “They do say it’s a small world.” Did Carolyne sound as curious as she was?

  Melanie was a “fisherman” who knew she’d set her hook. “They met when Gordon helped select sites for the videos from Galin’s Amaz’n Galin album. You know: the album that went platinum before it officially hit the stores.”

  Carolyne only briefly wondered how a record managed to do that, but she wasn’t really interested enough in the rock-and-roll business to ask. The Galin-Gordon connection was something else again. “Amaz’n Galin?” She didn’t want him to think she looked down on what he did for a living; she merely found the new music so damned loud and—probably luckily—undecipherable, most of the time.

  “A play on ‘Amazin’, i.e. ‘Amazing,’ and ‘Amazon’.” Melanie had a lot down pat. “It was a concept album.”

  “A run-thorough theme,” Galin elucidated. “‘Love is a Jungle,’ ‘Man-eating Woman,’ ‘Eaten Alive,’ ‘Hot nights, Cold Lady,’ etcetera. Richard was contacted to rush-shoot a couple of the videos for play on YouTube.”

  “I don’t recall his mentioning any of that.” Carolyne combined more ham and eggs; she punctuated with a bite of butter-soaked toast. “There was only something about ‘a honeymoon’.”

  “Honeymoon at Loon Lake. Shirley Lynn’s debut movie.”

  “Tell Carolyne why Richard didn’t boast the Amaz’n Galin videos,” Melanie coaxed.

  “Mmmmmm,” Carolyne encouraged in lieu of showing a mouthful of chewed food.

  “Richard pulled out halfway through the shoot: breach of contract,” Galin said. “I brought in Dillon Crane at the last minute, at additional expense. At the time, I swore it would be a cold day in the Amazon before I’d ever work with Richard again. Trouble is, he’s damned good at what he does, and Dillon just followed through on Richard’s original schematic to make the videos visually spectacular. They extended the album-life by providing three number one on the charts, over and above the original two that took off without visual promotion; so, I forgave him…obviously.”

  “Which finds you two here on this ecology video?” Carolyne was still angered by Richard’s pyromania. “Shouldn’t you be out pantomiming a song or two in the burn?”

  “I’m too valuable to get too near any flames.” He managed not to come across conceited. “Most of the interfacing will be done in a stateside studio with technical equipment that will have it looking as if I’m singing, ‘Armageddon Now!’ dead-center the holocaust. Most of my shots were taken the first day, before the burn. I’ll do more amongst the ashes, later this afternoon.”

  Melanie figured other aspects were of more interest. “Go over, again, the reason why Richard pulled out of the Amaz’n Galin shoot.”

  “You mean, tell you about Susan?”.

  Carolyne’s left eyebrow arched in encouragement. “Susan?”

  “Susan Delaney.” Galin wasn’t immune to the excitement of Gordon’s murder. “Richard’s main squeeze at the time. A genuinely statuesque beauty who once thought she could sing but latched onto Richard, or vice versa, when it was apparent she didn’t have the vocal cords to succeed.”

  “Seems Alexandra wasn’t the only woman to succumb to Gordon’s charms.” Melanie could almost see and hear the little gears rolling inside Carolyne’s head. “Susan fell like a ton of bricks for the big white hunter.”

  Carolyne associated ‘big white hunter’ with Africa, but she could stretch the point.

  “Richard didn’t take it well,” Galin continued his contribution. “Really went bonkers. Insisted he’d been about to marry the girl; although, by then, he had graduated from calling her ‘girl’.”

  Melanie was less reticent: “He was calling her ‘a two-timing bitch’!”

  “Day-long crying jags.” Galin shook his head. He found the memory disgusting. Susan hadn’t been all that special. Then again, Galin, unlike Richard, wasn’t five-feet-one and didn’t look like a toadstool. Still, even the shortest and ugliest in the business, especially the short and ugly with Richard’s kind of clout, could expect better. The broad must have been a real whiz in bed. “He couldn’t work. Everything came to a stop. Finally, he just pulled up stakes and headed home. Gordon and Susan went off somewhere to play house while I had to wait around in Belem for Dillon to clear his schedule and fly down to give me a hand. When Dillon arrived, Gordon came back sans Miss Delaney.”

  “Richard now here at the moment Gordon drops dead,” Melanie stated the obvious.

  Galin supplied more details: “Says he was ninety nine one hundredths percent cured the moment Susan came running back with some sad tale about how Gordon had dropped her like a hot potato, not more than a minute after he’d run off with her. Not that Richard took her back. Hell, no! Afterwards, he wanted to exorcise the rest of his demons, and he figured here would do it. He had this concept for a save the jungle song and video that was just right for me; tree burning gets big publicity in the States these days. What’s to produce oxygen when all the jungles are gone? That kind of scare tactic. He even proposed Gordon to scout locations, but Gordon was off with you.”

  “Richard lucked out when Kyle volunteered to put some acres to the torch?”

  “Did you really smack Richard for setting his fire?” Galin’s ever widening smile revealed the faintest dimple in his right cheek. “I asked him how he ended up with that handprint on his face, but he refused me the specifics.”

  “Kyle allowed the burn as a favor to an old family friend who owes Richard for getting his son out of a cocaine mess in Los Angeles.” Melanie had mined.

  Carolyne remained unconvinced that a favor was any excuse for destruction.

  If the women were already enthralled, Galin had more to keep their interest. “Actually, Richard and I met John Leider, too.”

  Melanie kept him going: “When? Where? How?”

  “Just before Richard pulled up stakes and Gordon ran off with Susan. Gordon knew this spot on the Amazon just perfect for what we needed for an Amaz’n Galin locale, but Leider was there before us and wasn’t happy to see us. He put bullet holes in our boat, one of which missed but gave Richard’s hair a new part; ask him to show you the scar. Leider wouldn’t believe we were there to film, not even when we showed him cameras and my leather costume. I swear he had us figured for claim jumpers; Gordon’s presence seemed to have him all the more convinced. In the end, Gordon took us to another spot but complained that Leider had usurped the better location. Shortly, thereafter, things fell apart.”

  “You do know that Leider is now missing?” Carolyne figured his exchange of information with Melanie had been a two-way street.

  “News of Melanie’s emerald wasn’t kept under wraps for long.” Galin had heard from Richard who’d heard from one of the cameramen who’d heard from the servants. “Some kind of birthday gift for his wife?”

  “So says Roy who sold it to him,” Carolyne confided.

  “It’s kind of hard to put Leider’s disappearance on Richard’s doorstep just because of that once upon a time scalp wound; Richard hasn’t been in Brazil since the Amaz’n Galin videos; passport control, here, and in the U.S., makes that easy enough to check.”

  Nevertheless, Carolyne definitely suspected some kind of tie-in of Gordon’s death with the missing John Leider, unless the man had had an offer on the “J” emerald that he simply couldn’t refuse.

  “Yo!” Roy heralded as he came around the end of the house with Rodrigo Barco in tow.

  “Any word?” Melanie scooted her chair to make room; Carolyne and Galin followed suit.

  “The helicopter pilot just radioed in,” Roy filled in. “No sign of the murder weapon where we left it. No body, either; made to look as if some animal had dug the corpse out for dining.”

  “No way a jaguar!” Carolyne was convinced by this point.

&n
bsp; “They did find jaguar pugs,” Roy said, “but, I suspect, you’re right. The animal probably nothing more than a convenient disposal unit for whoever did dig out the body.”

  Suddenly, Carolyne had no appetite for the food remaining.

  “There’s a last bit of bad news, I’m afraid,” Roy informed. “Inspector, do you want to do the honors?”

  Rodrigo fished his document case for the manila envelope he deposited into an empty space on the table.

  Carolyne recognized his invitation and took possession. The contents were underexposed photographs, but of what?

  Melanie, more than one photography class under her belt, was quicker on the uptake. “None of my shots came out?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Roy confirmed.

  “I don’t believe this!” Melanie decided. Granted, she had been upset when she took the pictures of Gordon’s body, but all the operations of her camera were second nature to her by now. How was it possible, after all her efforts, that nothing was produced? “Felix!” she voted total responsibility. “The night I discovered my backpack rifled, he’d already gotten the filled digital chip and substituted an unused one from his own supply. So, when I exchanged unused chip for what I thought was the real stuff, I was doing nothing but replacing his unused chip with one of my own.”

  “Why would Felix make such a switch?” Roy asked, seemingly anxious for someone to provide Rodrigo and him a clue.

  It was Carolyne, of course, who had the answer: “Because he.…” She cut herself short, fearful of what effects bad-mouthing Melanie’s mother would have on her relationship with Melanie.

  Rodrigo had been long enough on the job to recognize an opportunity when he saw one, and he suggested Carolyne say what she had to say in private.

  Melanie looked left out; Galin and Roy looked none too pleased, either.

  Reluctantly, Carolyne joined Rodrigo on the far side of the patio.

  Carolyne explained to Rodrigo her theory as to how Felix may have killed Gordon so, with its guide dead, the expedition would fail in its mission and, thereby, keep Cornelius Ditherson from any additional, albeit posthumous, credit for discovering a plant soon to be used in a cure for cancer. As the murderer, Felix wouldn’t have wanted any photos surfacing to indicate Gordon dead of anything except by jaguar; Felix, in the past, having assuaged his envy by having had an affair with Cornelius’ wife, Melanie’s mother. Carolyne assured that Charles could confirm all she said. She, also, mentioned how, considering her good relationship with Melanie, she had been reluctant to bring up the Margaret-Felix affair in Melanie’s presence. “There are those who think I was jealous of Melanie’s mother, because Margaret stole Cornelius from me. However, I never had any real chance with Cornelius.” It was something she’d decided long ago but, until now, hadn’t been up to admitting.

  Rodrigo promised discretion.

  Carolyne didn’t rejoin Roy, Galin, and Melanie, although Rodrigo did. Carolyne wanted time to figure some logical excuse for having excluded them from her discussion with Rodrigo. If the others thought she withheld information from them, they’d be less apt to volunteer to her their ideas, and Carolyne did so enjoy the continuing intricacies of this who done it.

  She borrowed a Jeep from the ranch motor pool and drove into town. It gave her a chance to think; it gave her a chance to run down a bottle of henna. She needed all the mental, as well as all the cosmetic, help she could get.

  Besides, Manaus was fascinating in its second boom, filled with turn of the century remnants from the lucrative rubber trade that contrasted with the modern high-rises from the present commercial successes of a town declared a free port in the nineteen-sixties.

  Here were some of the best fishing facilities in the whole Amazon region: for tucanari, surubim, piraiba, pirarara, and 180-pound durado.

  Eight hundred plus miles upstream from the Amazon mouth at Belem, Manaus was a centrally located jump-off for anyone interested in traveling the more inaccessible areas of the Basin. There were still pockets of jungle where animals, like jaguars, roamed on a regular basis, not just as occasional visitors in search of a tasty human being.

  Large ranches, like the Georni spread, made notable contributions toward pushing back the forest, but Carolyne drove through groves of cocoa, rubber, and guarana that were footholds prepared to expand at the first opportunity.

  She pulled into the Hotel Amazonas. The Tropical Hotel Manaus was larger but another eighteen kilometers up the beach at Ponta Negra; it wasn’t gorgeous landscaping, natural zoo, casino, shops, or floating river bar that Carolyne wanted, though.

  It took three hours to be squeezed into a full docket of looks-conscious tourists and get the complete treatment offered by the hotel beauty salon, but it was worth it. She looked better, felt better, and had her new supply of touch-up henna. During her turn under the dryer, she’d decided to come clean to Melanie, Roy, and Felix, but only if Melanie pressed the issue.

  She assumed she might run into Felix who’d driven into town before her. The city was large, but the Hotel Amazonas was a popular watering hole for locals and tourists alike.

  However, it was Richard Callahan she spotted as she pretended to examine a display case of indigenous Indian handicrafts and weapons (the arrows looked disturbingly familiar); actually, she preened in the glass, once again complimenting the metamorphosis accomplished via the ministrations of the skillful beautician.

  In a hurry, Richard didn’t see her as he was lost amid taller people and exited through a side door.

  Carolyne gave chase, because intuition said he was up to no good. What other explanation for his not being where he’d told Galin he would be? If he’d merely wrapped up shooting for the day, he still deserved another piece of her mind; anyone who burned down the jungle in the name of ecology was someone who needed to be set straight at every turn.

  Following wasn’t as easy as Carolyne had been led to believe by movies, books, and TV. Or, her problem was a quarry that didn’t jut up in a crowd but, rather, sank into it. Richard’s shortness easily disappeared him behind people, cars, bicycles, even—seemingly—trash cans.

  It was his wake she followed. People glanced after him, and Carolyne knew they reacted to the sight of the hurried little man. She caught an occasional glimpse of his trousers, or his shirt, through a forest of legs. Cars screeched to sudden stops as Richard crossed in front of them.

  Her efforts made her perspire; the last thing she wanted after paying for her “cure”. Why chase Richard down a dirty Manaus street when she could wait until evening and confront him over cool cocktails on a cool patio?—“By the way, Callahan, what were you doing today in town when you were supposed to be busy shooting burn scenes for your video?”

  She stopped, but only because he stopped. He was half a block away, his back to a building. He checked his watch and turned in her direction. Rather than wave him down, she played inept private detective, in some B-grade move, and turned to feign interest in a store window that turned out to be a solid brick wall.

  Embarrassed, she turned back, and his—I’m not happy to see you—expression said he’d spotted her for sure. She took two steps in his direction, determined to begin again where she’d left off when she’d knocked him flat, but his attention really wasn’t on her. It was focused, instead, and always had been, on a younger woman who approached him from not quite Carolyne’s direction to stop, arms akimbo, and tower over him, like some stereotypical Amazon of mythology.

  At the same moment, Carolyne felt an imperceptible tug on her purse, reminiscent of Rome when a young hoodlum on a motorcycle had come abreast, reached out and taken hold of her purse in preview of the real wrench that would have disconnected her arm from her shoulder if her purse strap hadn’t conveniently broken.

  Reflexively, she braced, and her free arm swung her free hand to clamp her purse. She’d have this little bugger pulled off his cycle and laid in the street before she’d budge.

  This kid, though, wasn’t on a motorcycle. H
e just stood there. His hand was no longer on her purse, although it had been on it to get her full attention. First thing, Carolyne made sure all the purse zippers were still zipped, all the snaps still snapped. Second thing, she wondered why the youngster wasn’t six blocks away by now.

  He spoke her name: the last thing she expected. He tried again and enunciated more slowly and clearly.

  “Who wants to know?” It was the seemingly harmless ones who caught you unaware and did the worst damage. She pulled her purse closer and waited for him to make his next move.

  He produced a folded piece of paper.

  “What’s that?” She was suspicious.

  Her name was apparently the extent of his vocal English vocabulary.

  She took the paper, and he left her with a swiftness that surprised and impressed her.

  She had the page half unfolded when she remembered, “Richard!” Her exclamation drew startled glances from two men, neither of whom stopped; probably neither named Richard.

  Richard and the woman were gone. Carolyne blamed the now absent boy for the diversion; the paper would be blank when she opened it.

  Wrong!

  It was a woman’s neatly written script that invited “Mrs. Santire” to “join Mrs. John Leider for tea.” Carolyne checked her watch. If the tea in question wasn’t all that far away, it could be what the doctor ordered. It held far more interesting prospects than accosting Richard and his Amazon on a busy Manaus street.

  She went back to the hotel, and, as if she were a paying guest, she requisitioned a map of the city from the clerk behind the front desk. Then, she had him pinpoint the Leider address on the map and red-line the most direct route there from the hotel.

  She arrived within the hour, not sure she was in the right place. She didn’t exactly know what she’d expected by way of a residence for Mrs. John Leider, wife of missing prospector, John Leider, but it wasn’t this Italian-Renaissance villa in direct throwback to times when Manaus had seen fabulous fortunes made and spent overnight in mad quests for rubber put in so much demand by Mr. Goodyear’s discovery of vulcanization.