He’d caught her in her own prejudices, and she didn’t like the inflexibility of thought he’d spotted but she’d not recognized.
He interrupted the ensuing silence. “I wouldn’t rely upon my immersion in behavioral sciences for any insights into the character of the killer, though. To say, ‘I majored in psychology’, is a misnomer in that I opted for a singing career before I was subjected to any in-depth probing of the criminal mind. Besides which, I’m not nearly as interested in a solution as I suspect you are. That’s because someone who murdered once can murder again, and why should I aggravate him or her to murder me? I still have a lifetime ahead of me.”
His insinuation: Carolyne, my dear, you’re over the hill and headed down the other side of the mountain, most of your life behind you. What real loss to you, or to anyone, if you drop dead, or are dropped dead, tomorrow? Your advanced age earns you the right to meddle and the right to suffer the consequences.
“I care about Felix’s motives,” he said, “and about the mysterious Margaret, whom you and Charles somehow linked to Felix, to his ultimate chagrin, only insofar as no one sees that as curiosity too rampant for my own good. Exploration, as you very well know, can be a very dangerous vocation; which is why I’m who I am, and why you are who you are.”
She took his warning as not necessarily based upon precognition. He’d said nothing, insinuated nothing, which established him as anything other than an innocent conduit of information. If he saw that she meddled at a higher level and that she prepared to scale even more precarious heights, she saw that, too, and just as easily knew she could be letting herself in for trouble.
By comparison to her ride to police headquarters, her identification of a teary Susan Delaney was anticlimactic. Susan neither denied who she was, nor her meeting with Richard. She did deny, and continued to do so, that she’d drained the brake fluid from Richard’s car. She insisted she had never seen his car. She greeted Galin as someone sympathetic amid terrain, until then, viewed as completely alien, and she asked him how she could have known where Richard’s car was, let alone what it looked like. And, what, after all, did she know about car-things, like brake fluid?
In fact, the police had mapped Susan’s whereabouts since her arrival in Manaus. At five foot eleven, long legs, fantastic figure and a striking mane of auburn hair, she wasn’t hard to miss. Had a career in music depended entirely upon looks, she would have been a runaway success.
“We’ve verified that she called Richard from Mexico City, late last night,” Rodrigo Barco briefed Carolyne; Galin had been left to fraternize with the prisoner. “A maid at the ranch verified that Richard got the call. The cameramen verified that Richard left them at the burn site with instructions that they were to remain there until his return. A cab driver verified the time he picked Susan up at the airport and dropped her at her hotel. A hotel desk clerk verified when she checked in. A bellboy was with her all of the way to her room. After she tipped him, she returned to the lobby in the same elevator he did. She went out the front door at approximately the same time you followed Richard out the side door. Where they met wasn’t far enough away for her to have detoured to his car, let alone found it, drained it of brake fluid, then made the meeting when you said she did. What’s more, she made it back to the hotel, ten minutes later—her meeting with Richard short-lived and not too satisfactory. To soothe her nerves, she went to the beauty parlor.”
“That provided three more hours of supervision.” Carolyne spoke from recent experience.
“An hour and a half, to be exact.”
Carolyne had forgotten that Susan hadn’t quite the state of disrepair Carolyne had managed after weeks in the jungle. Susan at her worst probably wouldn’t have needed three hours of maintenance.
“After the beauty parlor, she went to dinner at the hotel restaurant. Witnesses a-plenty, once again. By the time she finished eating, Richard’s car had been drained of its brake fluid and had plowed into that banana tree.”
Galin appeared at the doorway on the far side of the outer office and weaved through the assortment of desks and policemen. Rodrigo watched his progress and motioned him to join them.
Galin took the chair next to Carolyne. “Susan insists she’s here to get Richard back. She realizes she loves him. More likely, she realizes he has the clout to stymie any kind of career for her in the music business, and she’s out to make amends. She admits that jobs, even sexual liaisons, have been slim pickings on the rock circuit, since she’s gotten on Richard’s bad side.”
“That’s pretty much her story,” Rodrigo confirmed. “Unless we can find someway to see where she squeezed a few more minutes out of a schedule witnessed all along the way, I don’t see how we’re going to prove any differently.”
The phone rang.
Rodrigo answered, listened, and pushed a hold button. Line five for you, Mrs. Santire. The next office is available if you’d like to take it there.”
Curious, Carolyne made the trip next door and pulled the door shut behind her. Through the partition of window that divided her from them, she could see Rodrigo and Galin in conference. She pushed the fifth button, all aglow, on the telephone base. “This is Carolyne Santire.”
“This is Kyle Georni.”
“Kyle? Anything wrong?”
“Just passing on a bit of information I thought you might like to act on. A spy tells me Felix is at the floating bar of the Tropical. Drinking ice tea. If he stays sober, it might be an opportunity to mend a few fences. Or, are you interested?”
“Of course, I’m interested.”
“I thought you might be. How are things there?”
He’d get a report directly from Rodrigo, but Carolyne obliged with a preview. “Seems Susan Delaney has an alibi that accounts for way too much of her time for her to have meddled with Richard’s car.”
“Could she have hired someone to do it for her?”
“As far as we know, an accomplice remains a viable option, but, at the moment not to be proven. There’s been no obvious contact with anyone who may be in on it with her.” Carolyne figured it required someone in Manaus before Susan arrived, ideally someone who knew the terrain. It was unlikely Susan would have been able to drum up any such person on short notice, without prior knowledge of his credentials and trustworthiness. The shooting of the Amaz’n Galin videos had occurred far east of Manaus, so it seemed unlikely she’d been in contact with any of the city’s underworld characters on that time through Brazil, unless she’d been introduced to them when she’d headed off for fun and games with Gordon.
“Well, if she’s guilty of anything, count on Rodrigo to get to the bottom of it,” Kyle offered by way of reassurance.
“Talk to you later, and thanks for the location report on Felix.”
“Ciao!”
She hung up and returned to the adjoining office, followed by a police detective who announced he had something he thought Rodrigo should take a look at.
Rodrigo looked, swore: “Damn!” and slammed the object of his exasperation onto his desk top so Carolyne and Galin had a good look. It was a Rio de Janeiro newspaper, turned to an inside page, where one article, with accompanying photo and headline, had been outlined in red by some diligent bureaucrat with for the eyes of Rodrigo Barco primarily in mind. The picture was of a very dead and much mauled Gordon Wentlock. The headline queried:
MAN OR MANEATER KILLS GUIDE?
CHAPTER NINE
“Do you mind…?” Carolyne asked Galin who’d given her a ride.
“Let me guess.” The Rio Negro’s blackish, nutrient-rich water flowed by the Tropical Hotel toward a meeting with the umber water of the upper Amazon; the two rivers, each two miles wide, would visibly flow side by side for the fifty miles it would take to complete a final and murky meld. “You want to speak to Felix privately.” He nodded toward Felix at a table in the hotel’s floating bar; Felix was engrossed, in the way of a heavy drinker, with the glass on the table before him. “You know, Carolyne, if y
ou always insist upon these exploratory, but private, tête-à-têtes, no one is likely to have a clue if anything happens to you? ‘How should I know?’ each and every one of us will say. ‘She didn’t share what she rooted out, did she?’”
“Nevertheless.…” She requested Galin’s cooperation.
He fished between his muscled, bare skin and his partially buttoned bush jacket for a folded newspaper. “I’ll read about Gordon’s murder.”
“You lifted that from the police station!” Carolyne was as appalled as she was impressed.
“There were extra copies on that desk in the outer office, weren’t there?” His naughty-boy innocence was another example of conscious sex appeal. “I didn’t think I should have to wait until official distribution put the paper on the Manaus newsstands tomorrow.”
“Let me borrow it.” She went farther: “Please.”
“Take. Take. Take. Did no one ever tell you, Carolyne, that a giver benefits more, psychologically?”
“I promise to keep that in mind.”
“I could order a batida, but I wouldn’t want to be left to drink more than one. I’ve no desire to collide with a banana tree.”
“I’ll make sure you only have to drink the one.”
He slapped the purloined paper against her palm with the precision of a nurse delivering a scalpel to an operating surgeon.
“Thank you, Galin.”
“My pleasure, Carolyne.” He bowed gallantly. His crisp about-face did any West Pointer proud, as did his march out of earshot.
Carolyne wasted no time in approaching her target. “Felix, why didn’t you tell me your sister died of AIDS?” Even if the bar had been full, her modulated voice would have kept her question contained within their shared allotted space.
His looks wouldn’t win many admirers in a singles’ bar. His eyes were bloodshot. The grow-back of singed hair was stubby and uneven on his face and head. “Go away!” No hint of alcoholic slur. “What do we have to talk about, anyway?” He turned his glass and left fingerprints in its condensed moisture.
A waiter appeared with the swiftness for which the hotel staff was renowned. Carolyne ordered ice tea to compare it with what Felix had.
“I knew that bastard Rodrigo wouldn’t keep his mouth shut. All this bullshit about a cousin with ADIS was a play to milk information from an already falling-down drunk with diarrhea of the mouth.”
“Rodrigo Barco didn’t tell me. Melanie did.”
“Melanie?”
“Margaret and Cornelius’ daughter, remember her? Little children have big ears.”
“If that’s true, remind me to apologize to Rodrigo.”
Carolyne’s tea arrived. No mistaking it for anything but what Felix had, right down to its slice of lemon and sprig of mint.
“Some of us wonder if you blamed Cornelius and Margaret when RZ11-2 didn’t prove the miracle cure it was made out to be.”
“You’re joking!” His hazel eyes sparked.
“You admit, the drug was flawed.”
“I begged Margaret for the dosage. Didn’t eavesdropping Melanie catch that part? Margaret didn’t come to me looking for guinea pigs.”
“The death of a loved one sometimes distorts logic.”
“Margaret Ditherson was a saint. Cornelius Ditherson was a saint; he didn’t miss a delivery after Margaret died. Not that I would have blamed him, because Margaret would have lived if she hadn’t played Good Samaritan.” He dared Carolyne to deny it. “They risked a helluva lot to give my sister and Burt a try at some quality time. I’m angry that anyone, Melanie included, should think me so small minded an ingrate to misconstrue their good intentions to such an extent that I’m plotting murder all of these years later.” He drank his tea.
“Objectivity is difficult for some of us in the absence of facts.”
“My sister’s death is none of your business. It’s none of Melanie’s business. It’s none of Rodrigo Barco’s business, and I’ll forever regret I was too drunk not to stand up to his browbeating.”
“You’d rather have it whispered that you and Margaret were meeting at Seaman’s Roost, every Tuesday, for a roll in the sheets? That’s hardly any reward for the woman who risked so much.”
“It was either risk her reputation with the truth, or risk it with a lie.”
“You didn’t figure I’d be sympathetic?”
“You left when Cornelius married Margaret. How can I ever be sure of anything involving you and the memory of those two?”
“Cornelius gave you the impression that I was vindictive because he jilted me for another woman?”
“Cornelius never bad-mouthed anybody to me, including you. The facts: you and he were a team envied by everyone in our business; he married another woman; you deserted him and Crystin Companies for the competition.”
“I see.” Actually, she didn’t. She’d handled a traumatic time in her life in an exemplary manner. That others saw it differently was hurtful, insulting, and uncomplimentary.
Felix sat back and crossed his arms; it was a defensive posture any reliable psychiatrist would identify. “Then again, maybe I’m wrong. I’ve been the target for my share of unfounded rumor. Have you heard the one about poor Felix, chained behind a desk when he so desperately wanted to be in the field? That one is more than a little ragged from overuse, and it’s true—to the deceptive extent all good rumor is based upon a trace of fact. ‘The field’ sounds so exotic: Amazon Basin, African Rift, Gobi Desert. I wanted it, like someone wants a gallon of ice cream at one sitting, knowing it isn’t necessarily the best thing for one’s health. I idolized Cornelius Ditherson, and for him I would have sat on my ass, at my desk, for the rest of my life. If this trip proved anything it’s that Cornelius was right to keep me home, and I was right to know he was right to keep me there. I’ve hated this from the beginning: the heat, the humidity, the bugs, the claustrophobic vegetation, the people. As for Gordon’s death, the jaguar, the cannibals, the whoever it was who kidnapped Charles and Teddy, the downed bridge, the river crossing: all of those were overkill. I knew the minute I stepped off the plane, the heat a hammer blow, that Cornelius and I had been right all along. Had I had any sense, I would have begged off, then and there. The only thing that kept me hanging in was the hope that I might actually make a contribution to Cornelius’ memory. I had visions of being the one to stoop over in some jungle clearing and proclaim, ‘Lygodium cornelius!’ Yet, all you saw was an out of shape old man, jealous of Cornelius’ accomplishments, jealous of Cornelius’ success in bed, tottering around this hell with the sole purpose of gumming up the works. Am I alone in seeing that as ironic?”
“If I was wrong, I apologize.” She thought that was big of her, and she didn’t understand or appreciate the mocking curl of his upper lip.
“If? You see how you’re not convinced, even now? No more than I’m convinced you’re not a vindictive old biddy who blames two failed marriages on Cornelius dumping you for Margaret.” His laugh wasn’t pleasant.
She was about to show him how objective she could be if given sufficient input; her ‘if’ had been out of habit, not the Freudian slip he imagined.
However, Felix retained control of the conversation. “When Margaret succumbed to my pleas for RZ11-2, Cornelius in agreement, they had my loyalty for life, because they helped me help the most important person in my life. I never knew my father; my mother was a die-hard alcoholic whose liver finally gave out; but my sister, a typical, street-wise ‘broad’ who even embarrassed me, when at her sluttiest, was someone whose unselfish sacrifices catapulted me out of the slums and gave me everything decent I ever had. Every trick she ever turned, every illegal act she performed, including every drunk she ever rolled, contributed to my ‘Felix’s School Fund’. She danced nights as a stripper and worked days in a greasy spoon, as a waitress, just to see me in school with spending money. She made herself old before her time, not to mention vulnerable to the AIDS virus.”
The waiter appeared to ask if they want
ed another round. Carolyne said, “Yes.” She wanted the conversation to continue.
“Give me a double Scotch.” He amended so fast it seemed part of the same sentence, “Make it another tea.”
He drained the last of what he had so the waiter could take the glass. He drew geometric designs in the puddle that remained on the table.
“‘Too good to be true!’ That’s what Denise told me when she found Burt, after a lifetime spent getting me through school, neither extra time nor extra money having ever been available for her to form any kind of permanent personal relationships. Burt was equally tired of the rat race, equally disillusioned, equally sure his life was over, because he was too old and too used to succeed in bars, in the back alleys, or on the streets. They met. They clicked. They were happy—for a time. Burt managed Seaman’s Roost, and Denise helped him make it uniquely theirs. They swore they could ‘make the motel one of a kind’ if they could ever manage the funds to entice the low life owner to sell. I was going to give them the title on their third anniversary, except Denise collapsed on the street two months before the party.”
The waiter brought their tea; neither drank any.
“They got the bad news and then got on with their lives. No accusations. No blame. No, ‘It was you!’ ‘No, you!’ It could have been either. It could have been both.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not nearly as sorry as I am, especially when Margaret’s death caught us all unaware. We knew Denise and Burt were dying. I knew, no matter how they insisted RZ11-2 was helping that it wasn’t helping enough—if at all—to save them. But Margaret? Healthy, vibrant Margaret?” He wiped his eyes. “If she’d wrecked her car before delivery of the drug, that day, instead of after, the RZ11-2 would have been found in her car; the implications for her, for Cornelius, for Crystin Companies, could have been disastrous. RZ11-2 was an experimental drug, not for human consumption.” He visibly shuddered. “Three people in my life; Margaret died, and there were two. When Denise died.…” To have completed the already known rundown would have been superfluous. “Yet, there are people, to this day, who think I would do something to keep a dead Cornelius out of the spotlight. Bullshit!”
Amaz'n Murder Page 15
