Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition

by Moulton, CD

  “How was your day?”

  “Other than being a little strange, pretty much the normal way of things. They found a treasure chest that had stuff hundreds of years old. Lots of gold and emeralds and such.”

  “I’d think that was exciting! It must be pirate treasure. I heard they found a few of them along here and in Coln.”

  “It was partly pirate treasure and partly cash. Dollars.”

  “Dollars? They didn’t have dollars back in ... I guess maybe they did. The later part of the pirate problem, anyhow. Confederate money and like that.”

  “They were dollars from about fifty years ago.”

  She seemed shocked. “That doesn’t make any sense!”

  “My sentiments exactly. Weird,” Clint said. “Here’s The Lemon Grass and this is Judi Lum, my neighbor, friend and partner in solving crime. Judi, Gina.”

  “I was just leaving,” Judi said. “Clint told me a lot about you, Gina. I see he wasn’t exaggerating at all! Selma said you were a bit of Okay.”

  “It’s all lies! They hate me! They’re just trying to cause me grief!” Gina cried. Judi laughed and said Gina was going to be a buddy, sure as sunset.

  She and Clint went in. They chatted about anything that came up and Clint introduced Gina to a dozen or so of the regular crowd. As they were leaving a rather fat individual came in with a local “lady” who worked the bars. Gina gave him a disgusted look and hurried Clint out as the man caught a glimpse of her. He was about to call to her, but they were out. She made it a point not to look in his direction.

  “Who was that?” Clint asked.

  “My boss. Raul Avenidas. He’s a scumbag – but he pays well. For the office. I doubt that one costs much. A few drinks and five dollars. He was nothing like I expected.”

  Clint laughed. Very interesting. Raul Avenidas. Betina Blakley.

  They went to The Rip Tide for a few drinks and conversation with a number of people, then went to Clint’s place. He suggested she move in. No need to pay for a hotel when she didn’t even use the place. She said she’d consider it.

  They chatted a bit and sat together on the deck. The police boat went by and several of the officers waved to Clint.

  “I still wonder why there were any dollars in the chest you told me about. Do you suppose someone found it and buried it back so they could come after it later? Maybe didn’t realize they’d dropped any money in it?” she asked. “Pirate treasure should be only that! It ruins the fantasy if there are newer things in it, not to mention how it needs explanation.”

  “They didn’t drop the dollars in it. They put them in,” Clint replied. “You don’t accidentally drop a million and a half in hundreds into a box with five times that in gold and jewels already inside.”

  “GUHH! MILLION!?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She seemed to be unable to believe that. Clint wasn’t so sure he could believe it. It was just plain weird.

  They were in bed for about an hour when the phone rang. Clint said he’d forgotten to turn the damned thing off and picked it up. It was Sergio.

  “Clint? I’m sorry to bother you at this time of night, but there’s been a murder.”

  “Details?”

  “A woman was stabbed to death. Stabbed repeatedly. This was a murder by a person who was angered beyond control. The woman isn’t from around here and knew very few people in the area, it seems. Gringa from Colombia. Fifty one years old. She was staying at Caracol so she wasn’t poor, by any standard.”

  “Caracol? Tell me her name wasn’t Betina Blakley?” Clint said. Gina sat up and make a little cry.

  “Yes. You knew her?”

  “I think she was the B. B. on those bands. Any reason to come there?”

  “Not that I can see.”

  “I’ll see you in the morning, then.

  “Gina, what’s the matter?”

  “Betina Blakley was the woman who came to the office today ... yesterday.”

  Weird Day

  “Judi, this is getting weirder and weirder,” Clint complained over breakfast in the morning. Gina had made omelettes and a fruit salad. She had fallen in love with the coffee Clint had from the friend near Enel Fortuna who ground just a hint of cacao in as he ground the coffee that he grew. It was delicious.

  “It really shook me when Clint said it was this Betina woman who was killed. She was in the office yesterday to talk with my boss. I figured she had money because he was fawning all over her. He can be downright obsequious,” Gina said. “I pretended I didn’t see him last night at The Lemon Grass, so he’ll be trying to find out if I know about his whore – like I would even care.

  “Clint, I’m going to wait awhile before I move in (Judi raised an eyebrow at Clint). I want to know if I even have a job much longer. My work card isn’t good for working anywhere else or for anyone else. I don’t know enough to make any plans, though I’ll definitely want to be back here, regardless. I like it better than Colombia.”

  “What part of Colombia?” Judi asked.

  “Not far from Cartagena, but that’s just for the work. My home, until the folks died, was near Medellin.”

  Judi nodded. Gina had to get to work. Clint was going to be checking a few things out. He walked Gina to work. She had to fish around for her keys because Avenidas wasn’t there yet. Unusual. He was generally early. When she was inside Clint went to Don Chichos for the gossip, then to the Golden Grill. The talk was all about the chest and very little about the murder. They didn’t know much about it.

  He then went to the police station to talk with Sergio, who said he had checked Raul Avenida out and hadn’t learned much. The murder took his attention. It seemed he was on the fringe of a lot of sordid things, but there was never a direct connection to anything illegal. He did come up with a few articles from twelve to four or five years ago that very well could have come from that chest. He had been living on the proceeds from that, comfortably, even extravagantly, until lately. Now, it seemed his funds were getting low. His business deals certainly didn’t account for what he was spending. The Blakley woman seemed to have some connection with him in Colombia and met with him twice that he knew about in Bocas over the past week. That was, apparently from the papers in her room, about purchasing some kind of company in Colombia. He started it there, moved here and she was only here to finalize the deal.

  “Finalize a deal in Colombia in Bocas?” Clint asked. Sergio shrugged and said it probably had to do with the offshore account she had here in Panamá. “What I see at this point is that she’s dead and he was the only one who knew her. That makes a couple of very important implications.”

  “What time was she killed?“ Clint asked.

  “Between ten and eleven. Closer to eleven. Out by sixth street. No one saw or heard anything.”

  “I know where he was at about eight thirty. The Lemon Grass. He was with a local pro. I think she calls herself Evette,” Cliff said. “Not among the better ones.”

  “She hangs around the Submarine Sandwich place, so we can run over and talk to her,” Sergio suggested. “She’s probably going to be his alibi, even though I doubt he did it.”

  They went to the café, but she was over by the Bocas Market. They found her there. She said Raul was a bit of a weirdo, talking about the other women he knew and how they were all alike. Out to screw him out of as much money as they could.

  “He really got weird about the old treasure chest they found, you know, the pirate chest, had ten million dollars in cash in it, if you can believe the word going around.”

  “Weird? What do you mean?” Sergio asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know, really. I don’t speak much English and he was yelling about some cheap pig who cost him lots of money. She screwed him and he didn’t even get a kiss out of it. It didn’t make any sense.”

  “What time did you leave him?” Clint asked.

  “I think it was around midnight. He said it was time to get home because he had a lot of work for today and it was alre
ady after midnight.”

  “You don’t know for certain?” Sergio asked.

  “Well, no. We were at the VIP and were a bit drunk and he left me some money and I stayed until almost closing time. Donaldo took me home.”

  They thanked her. Sergio asked Clint what he thought.

  “We don’t know a thing more than when we found her. He could have been there until midnight or he could have gotten her drunk and left at ten. She wouldn’t remember.”

  “What I’m thinking is that the VIP is right there. Someone going down to sixth street for a taxi would pass right in front of the VIP,” Sergio said. “It seems a bit convenient.”

  Clint nodded. It did that! “Shall we go see if his story matches?”

  It was Sergio’s turn to nod. They walked to the office and greeted Gina. Gina said he had come in less than five minutes ago and had one hell of a hangover. She called on the intercom and he said to come on in, but they had to take him as they found him. It wasn’t pretty.

  He greeted them with, “Do NOT drink wine with dinner, beer after, then rum and tequila after that. I ended up in some dive with an ugly cheap whore I thought I’d never get rid of. Luckily, I was in a place where they knew her, so I was able to get away by buying her a few more drinks and giving the bartender ten to see she didn’t leave for fifteen minutes. That’s my complaint and I feel like complaining. So there!

  “What can I do for you?”

  “You had business dealings with a Betina Blakley?” Sergio asked.

  “Oh. The Blakley woman. A real pain in the ass, but I’m going to get a big commission, so I try to be nice to her,” he said. “I don’t think she has anything to cause the cops to come. It’s not my fault MisCamCo isn’t thrilled about her getting such a block of stock, but they put it on the market themselves, so they paid their two bucks and placed their bet, far as I’m concerned. She might not have gotten her millions exactly legitimately, but that’s no concern of mine, either.”

  “Did you know she’s dead?” Clint asked.

  Avenidas stared at him a few seconds, then sat down hard, almost breaking the seat off his chair. He groaned and wailed, “Then there goes my commission! I can’t AFFORD to lose that! Oh, SHIT! I was counting on that to ... oh, SHIT FIRE!

  “Er, what happened?”

  “She was murdered,” Sergio replied. “Stabbed. Rather sadistically.”

  “When? She was here yesterday. She was ... she acted normally, for her. A bit nasty.”

  “Last night,” Sergio answered. “We were wondering if she said anything to you that would indicate she was afraid of anyone or if she acted nervous or whatever.”

  “Well, she was a little worried about the people who definitely did not want her to get control of the company, but they wouldn’t go that far. No matter what else, it would solve their financial situation and let them come back fairly strongly. It would have a negative impact on them to not have the deal go through – as I very carefully explained to her.

  “She always carried a lot of cash around. Was it robbery?”

  “Definitely not. It was supposed to look like it, but it was definitely not robbery,” Sergio said. “Her money and watch were gone, but she had on a diamond and ruby ring worth in excess of ten thousand dollars with matching earrings worth as much plus an antique emerald necklace that would probably bring half a million or more. I was surprised the ones who found the body didn’t take them. I was even more surprised that anyone would wear that kind of stuff in Bocas, then wander around sixth street, of all places.”

  “I can see why they grabbed the watch. It was worth a bundle,” he said. “Maybe they were about to be seen and ran. She had some kind of thing about wearing thousands of dollars worth of jewels. Flaunting that she was a rich bitch.”

  “Her body was found more than half an hour after she was killed, so that isn’t likely,” Sergio replied. “Well, we’d better get on with it. We do have the reputation for solving murders fairly quickly and positively here – until this Bill character, but we didn’t really have a clue about that.”

  “We have the added advantage of the watch. It’s damned easy to identify,” Clint added. “They can’t get rid of it and they damned well can’t keep it. If they toss it it’ll be found, then they will.”

  “If they toss it they’ll be found?” he asked, confused.

  “Very few know about it – so don’t let on. It will have to be someone we’ve mentioned it to,” Sergio said. “We’ll be in touch if we need anything more.”

  They went out. Gina pointed to the intercom and grinned. Clint raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t seen any indicator light on in that office.

  Gina saw his look and said, “I think the little red light is burnt out or something.” He grinned again and told her to keep her ears open, but don’t go too far. One person was already dead.

  They went to the station, where Sergio was handed several sheets of legal paper. He signed a couple, told Edith to arrest those two, then read over the next one. He said it was about Betina Blakley. She was born in Houston, Texas, and was taken to Colombia when she was less than a year old, was raised in Colombia and the states, went to UT, got an advanced degree in business administration when she was twenty two, then moved back to Colombia where her parents were living in a small puebla near Medillin. She worked for a couple of companies, married a rich Colombian who was killed twelve years ago in a drug cartel fight. She lived by investing a lot of cash in failing companies, taking over and making them pay. She threw a lot of money around, but she had so much she could show was legal that she was left alone. Adding up her accounts, particularly the three offshore accounts in Panamá and subtracting what she could show was legit left her with almost a hundred million unexplained.

  Not much and a lot at the same time, depending on how you looked at it. A little nag started in Clint’s mind, but he didn’t have a clue as to what his subconscious had seen.

  Next page was a list of people she had been known to have had dealings with. Avenidas was one of them. She knew him a lot longer than he had let on, though he didn’t seem to have had much dealings with her and it was a matter of how long, not how often. Contact between them was rare. A note said that he was in on a couple of deals with her father.

  It clicked. Her father was killed twelve years ago and he had sold some jewels from that chest twelve years ago, then Betina went to where that chest was found the night before it was found – because of a tip from a woman.

  That didn’t make much sense. It wouldn’t until he had some more to work with. It didn’t make sense, anymore than that cash in the chest made sense. If that chest was dug up twelve years ago and the jewels were taken ... but the money was no newer than fifty years old. This was weirder and weirder.

  “What world were you in then?” Sergio asked.

  “Oogy-googy land, I think. This is one hell of a mixed mess! NOTHING makes any sense!”

  “At least you have things that make no sense. All I have is a body and one definite suspect.”

  “Why would he kill ... because of the cash. It wasn’t supposed ... she ... I’ll be damned! That fits! She didn’t know the cash was in there EITHER!”

  “Give!” Sergio demanded.

  “I just have an idea that makes partial sense. I have to know about Avenidas and her father. I have to know a hell of a lot more about what was happening twelve and fifty years ago.”

  “This is getting interesting ... I mean, in addition to weird.”

  “We didn’t go too deeply into Avenidas in Colombia. There’s not a lot of cooperation.”

  “I’ll get help from Manolo and a friend,” Clint promised.

  Clint called Manolo for some information on Avenidas’ father and Blakley Sr. Anything. Manolo could get information from Colombia that regular processes couldn’t. He then called Manny to ask for any information from the states, particularly Houston, on possible connections there. He then decided to go out to the Zapatillas to laze around and think. He got ba
ck just before five and went directly to his comp. Both Manny and Manolo would e-mail their information.

  Manny had very little about Avenidas. He had probably been in the states only once and had stopped in Houston for about two hours, then gone to New York, then returned to Colombia, then back to Bocas. The office had been there for some years, but mostly as a drop address for the stock deals and a little real estate business.

  Betina Blakley spent quite some time in Houston for a number of years, but seldom in the past twenty four years. She had friends and a few business acquaintances there. There was a list of names she had most contact with.

  Friends; Dona Forbes, Frieda Gormann, Glen Lange, Helen Venders, Rebecca Venders, Louise Giotti, Frank Bendetti, Charlene Dancy, Jim Bunch. Business; Samuel Levant, Shirley Green, Harold Halverson, Josephina Cortez, Sharon Mills. Nothing rang a particular bell. Each of the listed people had short profiles. Bendetti was a bit of a wannabe thug, Green was into loan sharking in a small way, Halverson was a contact in Colombia as well as the states. Cortez and Mills were minor players in a restaurant and bar business.

  Clint got a bit of a chill at that one name. Was Halverson Gina’s father or uncle?

  H H y B B. That was a little scary. Gina?

  She was with him. She didn’t find any chest or kill anyone – but was she somehow connected to these people?

  He would wait for Manolo’s report.

  Bernard Blakley, her father, had died in a suspicious fire in October of 1998. He had a lot of dealings with everyone and was suspected of laundering money for certain drug cartels. He had a few legit deals, but his wealth seemed to be because he was clever about manipulating stocks to where he could do a hostile takeover of a company in trouble. Not much else was known about him.

  That twelve years that kept coming up was beginning to make Clint wonder. He went into town. Ben and Judy were talking in front of Ben’s place, so they joined him. They met Dave at the Golden Grill, then went to the Bahia and talked Gina into going with them to The Gran Muralla Chinese restaurante for a delicious meal. Gina noted that Clint seemed to be in another world.