by Moulton, CD
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.”
“Matt! Be careful!”
“You watch too many old ... TV shows, too.”
She laughed.
Clint locked the place and climbed into his boat. Next stop, Almirante.
The bay was a bit choppy, but not too bad. He stopped on the way to talk with an Indio family on their way to Almirante with a cayuca full of plaintains. It was about a forty foot cayuca that was piled high with the heavy fruit. The seven and a half horse motor was moving it right along. Clint was always amazed when a dugout boat like that could carry a couple of tons of such as the plaintains at that rate with such a small motor, but the centuries had resulted in a design for the boats that made them stable and with little water resistance.
He crossed in the middle of the reef and went on to the dock.
Deadly Trail
Serg had the police truck waiting. The driver, Amos Tomas, said that Serg was waiting at the accident-that-was-no-accident scene. He arrived with a lot of traffic backed up while the towtruck pulled the car onto the road to be carried in a slidebed to the police compound, such as it was.
Sergio showed Clint a long series of digital photos of just about every inch of the scene. That was a great thing about a 4G card. They could literally take a couple thousand pictures.
The blood on the windshield was almost an obvious smear. The closeups of the head wounds showed Clint he had been killed with a baseball bat or something like one. Very obviously, also, was that no flat windshield could produce those wounds.
Clint took a quick look into the car. The photos showed the crash bag on the driver’s side had deployed. There wasn’t one on the passenger side of that model. The passenger seatbelt was in the withdraw. There was a picture of the mechanism of the seat belt that showed it was damaged. The belt couldn’t be used. The papers showed the car was a rental so that was a very deliberate bit of damage.
Stedmann was a fairly large bullish and slightly fat man, maybe six two or three and three hundred ten pounds. He had dark medium length hair and brown eyes. He was wearing reading glasses in some pictures, Clint had noticed.
Sergio pointed to one picture of him with the hair partly in the sun and partly in shade. It was obviously dyed.
Clint singled out a picture that showed him from a slightly back angle.
“Wig,” Clint said and pointed to the hair just above the right ear. The color difference showed plainly on one spot.
Sergio grinned. “A small bit of alcohol when I dabbed some on the cut ear. It didn’t look right to me at the time.”
Clint was always impressed by the quiet subtle way Sergio carried on an investigation. The very professional and complete way.
“Steddman has been taken to the hospital for observation, but the air bag and belt left him with no injuries. He scratched the ear deliberately, I am quite sure, to cause us to believe that he was slightly injured. He complained that his back and neck hurt. Sometimes he would favor the right arm, sometimes the left....”
“So he wasn’t in any pain,” Clint agreed. “I think I should speak with the poor guy to be sure he isn’t too seriously hurt.”
“Yes, please. I am to return to Changuinola immediately. Now the automobile is on the way my job is done here. You are requested by the Policia Nacionál to assist in traduciendo. Mr. Stedmann does not speak well the Spanish..”
“And you don’t speak English.”
“Not that Mr. Stedmann knows.”
Clint and Sergio got into the police truck with several of the accident scene investigators. Sergio got reports that there was nothing wrong with the car before the crash. Everything was functioning properly.
“Stedmann says he was run off the road by a truck. One of the dirt haulers that come regularly along this part of the road. Testigos state very plainly that there was no truck. It was at seven twelve when it was reported by Stedmann as having occurred within a very few minutes. Less than three, according to him. The trucks do not move before seven thirty. They belong to the company or the nation and are
not taken to the homes of the drivers, as the independent truckers do. I have checked with the man who watches the Ojo de Agua project trucks and find there were none other than those on the road from there and they would have to have come from there to run Mr. Stedmann off the road.
“I did not immediately arrest Mr. Stedmann because I know how you work on these things and know you will want to investigate. All such investigations by yourself have proven very helpful to my department in the past. This is a way to have you volunteer without necessity of my requesting formally.”
“Oh, why?”
“Because I seem to remember that the friend of Mr. Stedmann, Mr. Oliver Haverton, who Mr. Stedmann listed as a contact upon entering Panamá, was involved in a fatal accident in Costa Rica a week or so ago.”
Clint nodded. Sergio was probably the only officer in the area who would automatically remember such details.
They got to Changuinola and went to the police station. Sergio would want Clint to have all the information available to date before meeting Stedmann. He would supply the information about the group traveling together and the contacts listed by all of them when they arrived in Panamá. Stedmann was in a group looking for investment in supply-side construction materials and machinery. They owned a semi-large dealership in the states and had several exclusive contracts with major heavy equipment manufacturers.
Gloria and Wilber Stenson were mostly in plastic and aluminum materials.
Donald Wentworth was in fastening materials. (“Like what?” Clint asked. Sergio handed him papers. Nails, special glues, window bracket holders, acrylic glues, and other such things.) His wife, Wanda, had died a month and a half ago in Mexico from some kind of infection. Clint raised an eyebrow and went on.
Harry and Faith Richards. Molding forms for concrete or composites.
Ben and Lilian Banks. Steel materials. (Rerod, security doors, etc.)
Anne Haverton, electrical. Her husband, Oliver, was deceased in a whitewater rafting accident in Costa Rica. Their contacts were mostly legitimate large construction companies. Fanny Martinez, Changuinola, was listed as a friend who was supplying habitations. Francisco Arauz was a friend of the Banks. Arturo Serano was a friend of Anne Sanders and her local lawyer. Enrique and Eladio Flores, lawyers and close friends of Stedmann.
Not a lot that was unusual – except that this was the third death among that group in two months and they kept on with the business trip?
“What information can you get about Haverton from Costa Rica?”
“Very little. It was a supposed accident in a river near Nicaragua. The question was why such an accident could happen there. There are many rafters in worse seasons and there has never been a fatal accident there. They listed it as a probably unfortunate accident that happened because the man was drinking too heavily to be on such an adventure.” Sergio took a couple of pages from a file and handed them to Clint. They said almost exactly that.
“Know anything about the death in Mexico?”
“Other than that it was in Oaxaca and was the result of an infection, no. It seems the group was the same as here except Stedmann and Faith Richards weren’t along then. A man called Frank Carlysle and a woman called Georgia Manson were with them. They went back to the states, Texas, and Stedmann joined the others there for the rest of the trip.”
Clint nodded and asked for permission to call the Costa Rican police for information. Sergio said to make any calls he felt were necessary, but they wouldn’t tell him anything.
Which was true. They seemed to have an attitude.
Clint sighed.
“Will you follow the money on this one, as they say in the movies?”
Clint nodded, then shook his head. “I think it’ll be more productive to follow the blood. I don’t like the looks of this.
“Serg, this could be some kind of serial killer. They all have a lot of money, I think. This may be some nut killing off people to show he’s smarter than the cops or something as strange. It would be Stedmann, but that would mean he didn’t kill ... I don’t get it.”
“I think I’d like to see what kind of contract they have among themselves. It could prove interesting and informative.”
“I can’t argue that one! It could be behind the whole mess – or not.”
“Whatever. I have to go to interview Stedmann now. Would you be so kind as to volunteer to traducir?”
Clint gave him the finger. They went to the truck.
“This is Donald Wentworth and this is Lilian Banks,” Stedmann introduced. “They’re traveling with our little group and came to see what they could do to help. Our little trip seems jinxed.”
Clint and Sergio shook hands and gave their names. Sergio asked Clint, in Spanish, to please translate what was said as his English was bad. Clint noted that Lilian seemed to understand Spanish, so said, “Glad to. You don’t speak Spanish?”
“I speak only a very little,” Lilian answered. “I haven’t heard Mark say anything past `cerveza’ and `buenos dias’ and that kind of thing.”
Clint nodded and said Sergio had asked that he translate.
“First, what’s the skinny? You hurt or just shaken up by this?”
“I’m alright except I’ll have some muscle pain for a couple of days and have to be careful about my neck,” Stedmann replied. “I guess I just lucked out. My number’s not up quite yet.
“I tend to fatalism. I think when it’s your time to go there’s nothing you can do about it. If it isn’t your time, it isn’t.”
“No muy serioso,” Clint said to Sergio.
“What, as exactly as you can remember it, happened?” Clint asked.
“I don’t know. I was driving toward – David, actually. We have an appoin ... great Scott! Lilian, please call Jorge Franciso and tell him why we aren’t getting to David right about now!”
Lilian looked shocked and went out.
“Anyhow, we were talking about a big job a company in David’s doing that has connections with the project here – we supply all kinds of materials and equipment for large construction jobs, you see. This is a working vacation for us. We’ve come all the way down through Central America.
“We were right there at that curve and a Walker sixteen – that’s a dirt hauler truck – came across the center right at us. I went toward the side of the road. The wheel dropped of into a soft rut or something. I remember yelling to hold on, then nothing until I came to with the car having that tree ... Ollie seemed dead or definitely in bad shape. I climbed out and called the emergency number. I got woozy for a few minutes. I remember some people coming from the side of the road a little ways back, then the police. You know the rest. The officer was there.”
“Estas hablando. Un Walker sixteen camion, afuera la calle, no recorder mucho mas.”
“Walker diez y seis?” Sergio asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Bueno. Continuar.”
“Anything else?” Clint asked.
“No. That’s about it,” Stedmann answered. Clint said that’s all he remembers.
“Okay,” Sergio said with a sigh and a shake of the head. “Es cierto is un Walker diez y seis? Tu conoce problema con esse.”
“Are you absolutely certain it was a Walker sixteen?” Clint asked. “There aren’t a lot of those here. Too big for that stretch of road. Too heavy. It must have been empty and traveling too fast for the conditions. Maybe they can find it pretty fast.”
“Well, it was a sixteen or twelve, but I’m pretty sure it was sixteen. It’s possible the fact it was barreling at me and I exaggerated it in my mind, but I really don’t think so. It was awfully fast.”
“Mas cierto. Possiblemente is doce, pero el no crea.”
“Gracias por su testimonio.”
“Thanks. He’ll make the report.”
“We have to go to David. Today, if possible.”
“Necessario esta por David hoy, si posible.”
“Otros si, pero el es por aqui hasta reportado. Hoy? Posiblem
ente, pero probablamente una dia.”
“The others can go on, but you have to stay around to formalize your statement. Possibly today, but probably tomorrow.”
“I can live with that. Thanks.”
They left. Lilian Banks was talking to a man in the waiting room. She introduced Harry Richards. Harry said this was terrible! They were cursed! Clint said life seemed that way at times. They certainly had their share of bad luck.
He went on to the station with Sergio. “I think I want to go to Costa Rica and poke around a bit. It shouldn’t take long.”
Sergio said he’d have him taken to the border and slipped through without delay. He wouldn’t be delayed coming back because he would be carrying National Police papers. He took a form out and filled it in, then signed it and had a man take it to the court to have a stamp put on it. Clint went to Almirante in the police truck and got his backpack with clothes and such, then was back in Changuinola for the papers, then to Sixola, then into Costa Rica, where he got a bus to Limon. He went on to a little town called Piedras (rocks) near the Nicaraguan border. He arrived just at dusk, so got a room in the only pension there, ate a reasonably good meal at the restaurant and went to one of the three local bars to ask a few questions.
Follow the Blood
“Los gringos quien esta por whitewater. Uno morio’.”
“I speak English and book all the whitewater trips,” the tall thin man said. “Octavio Arrenz.”
“Clint Faraday. I have to know about that trip and why anyone, drunk or not, would die along that stretch.”
“Suspicious as hell to me, too. No one was drunk when they left here. It wasn’t but about four kilometers down the river. I don’t think anyone could drink much crossing the first rill. That meant he got too drunk to navigate in ten minutes? Bullshit!”
“Yeah. They had another socalled accident in Panamá. Another one’s dead.”
“That Faith woman there? The looker. Bimbo body, but MENSA mind?”
“Think she’s got her sexy ass in it?” Clint had never seen her. This was the kind of information he needed.
