by Moulton, CD
“That’ll work!” Paco said. “It’s true, really.”
“So I’m the only one here who has no way out. Ahmad will see it as a failure on my part that cost him a billion dollars,” Ali said unhappily.
“You knew the rules when you got into the game,” Clint said. “Don’t expect any sympathy from me!”
“Well, I can disappear in a place not too far from here. Ahmad can send someone for his boat.” He got up and walked out.
“Ahmad finds him, he’s shark bait,” Sergio said. They all nodded.
“Most of you can come out alright,” Judi said. “Just keep the shit out of Panamá.
“These tamales are good!
“Oh! I meant to tell you! This Tomas D. Harry guy from the big bad US Gov’mint was looking for you. He said you have a lot to answer for. Benton was a US citizen who got killed because of the inefficiency of the Panamanian police department and he was going to bring it up in congress that blah, blah, blah.”
“He tried it on me,” Sergio said. “He’d just come from talking to you and said you were an airheaded bimbo bitch who had her come-upance on overdue and he was going to see that there were consequences for your attitude.”
“What did you do?” Aumond asked. “We met him. He was the typical big bad government O-ficial who was going to see that no one got away with obstructing him and his mission.
“I told him his new mission was to kiss my ass. I’d let him do it for a hundred dollars.”
“I asked him for his passport. It said his name was Benjamin Franklin Washington. I said he just filed a report under the name of Harry. He said, ‘Oh yeah. Wrong one!’ and handed me another,” Sergio said with a chuckle. “He’s sitting in a cell while I personally investigate why he has two passports under different names.”
“Oh? You’re investigating things personally?” Friendly asked, grinning.
“When I get around to it. Maybe tomorrow or next day.”
They joked for awhile, then Clint went home. He needed a shower and a long rest!
Update
Clint was relaxing, watching the sunrise from his hammock on his deck. It wasn’t very colorful today, but was somehow calming – as if he needed calming!
His phone buzzed. It was Rolf.
“Want an update? Something even you, with all your experience here, won’t believe.”
“I can’t picture what it would be. What?”
“There’s a man here from France, an engineering firm, who wants investors on a land route for carrying tankers too big to use the canal from coast to coast.”
“You, of course, said you’d investigate it and find investors if it was a good deal.”
“No. I said I’d heard the story before. No go.”
“Ah! Then he said you could make a deal that was perfectly safe where you’d make a bundle.”
“Something like that.”
“And?”
“Guess which company?”
“Ahmad subdivision f, for France, two thousand twenty three!”
“Nope!”
“Okay. Who?”
“Fran-Mex Inversion Financing Corporation, S. A.”
“Which is?”
“Some Ali somebody who’s living in Argentina somewhere.”
“He had the gall to come to you? Right! Even with my experience I can’t believe that!”
“It seems he hired somebody who’s as incompetent as he is. He didn’t contact me himself.”
“You gonna find him an investor or two?”
“Yeah! I already found one! Ahmad! He puts in a million cash up front and gets to meet the one looking for financing.”
“Gonna arrange it?”
“Why not? Nobody told me not to! I can use a couple million right now. I lost that much on a recent deal. The timing’s just right.”
Clint laughed and hung up.
Clint Faraday Mysteries
#17
A Long Way to Fall
(c)2011 by C. D. Moulton
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.
A tourist falls off a small cliff and dies. As a companion is explaining what happened, Clint remembers the spot. He’s explored there.
The man fell into that dry stream bed, then over the lower fall area, then onto the road and across to end up by the bay?
That meant he had to roll uphill and under the guard rail at a very specific spot – where the heavy brush would have stopped the fall.
Right! And I have this bridge in San Francisco I’ll sell cheap!
Contents
In the Golden Grill
A Look at the Scene
Doesn’t Make Sense
Things Learned
Investigations
Act in Character
Less of a Problem
Explanation
Picture This
E-mails
Clint Faraday Mysteries
#17
A Long Way to Fall
In the Golden Grill
“... were on a little rocky cliff up there to look out over the bay. You can see all the islands from up there. Jac told us about it – he’s from France. We met him at the Barco Hundido in Bocas – and we decided to climb. It’s really high. It took half an hour to go just a few hundred meters!” the somewhat attractive blond backpacker, Suzanne Lizette, from Sweden, said to the regular group sitting on the balcony at Peter’s Place in the Hotel Iris, David, Chiriqui, Panamá. She was telling about the accident in the mountains above the road from Almirante to Chiriqui Grande. One of them had fallen off a small cliff near the top, slid into a ravine and ended up in the mangroves on the edge of the bay 350 meters below.
The regular group was Jon, Jeff, Dick, Doug, Ralph, and sometimes, Clint Faraday, retired PI from Florida who had more and more interesting and diverse cases here since his retirement six years ago. He had proven himself to the police in Panamá and they sometimes asked his assistance in difficult cases. After all, they are a pragmatic group and Clint had thirty plus successful years experience as an investigator when he moved there.
“Paul and Erik were above, Lawrence and I were behind about five meters, Robert and Liam – he’s from France and knew Jon – were just behind us, I think. Annette and Helene were behind them – we were going two together – Gus and Chastity were next and Lars was behind. We would go a short distance and stop to rest so we would change sometimes. Someone new to talk with.
“When we started across that little rift mesa Lars called that we must be extra careful because the rocks were really loose and to slip there might make you fall more than ten meters into the trees below. Lars is experienced in mountain climbing so we all followed his advice at all times.
“Annette and I were first there. We did find it to be sorta difficult going. The gravel would slide, but it seemed safe enough. The ledge is more than a meter wide.
“Lawrence and Helene were together, I think, next. We changed at the last stop so weren’t the same as when we started.
“Liam was with Chastity and Lars ... I don’t remember. It was so bad. Everyone was in a group just there except that Annette and I and we were only two meters or less ahead. We all had to watch the path very carefully because of the loose rocks. I don’t think anyone could tell the police where anyone else was with any certainty. A lot of it fell when we moved. It’s that stuff they call tosca here and keeps sort of peeling off the side of the mountain all the time.
“There was some kind of loud noise, like a bird or something, from below. Right on or by the highway. We thought it may be a toucan because it sounded just like a Quetzal bird in Mexico and all went as close to the edge as we dared to look. The road is almost straight down there.
“I remember hearing Lawrence yell, ‘NO!’ and he was falling off the path. It was so bad because the small stream was exactly under him so he wasn’t stopped by the trees only a meter or two away. He was rolling down the rocks and we were all screaming,
then it was silent.
“We raced back down as fast as we could, but it took more than ten minutes to reach the road. He wasn’t there and we could see most of the stream bed. He wasn’t there.
“Liam said there was blood on the road. Maybe someone found him and was rushing him to the hospital, but Lars said anyone who found him would certainly call!
“Liam followed the blood and it went across the road. It was, I don’t know, in patches. Liam said he was rolling and had gone on across the road. Maybe he was semi-conscious and had wandered.
“We went across and saw some wet blood on the grass. He had rolled across and fallen into the ravine, then down into the mangroves by the bay.
“Lars and Liam stayed on the road to wave down anyone who came. A truck stopped and they called that they were going for the police. There’s no signal for a celular there. Liam went and Lars stayed. A bus stopped and the people waited until the girls came back to the road. We were crying and scared. Lawrence was all twisted and bloody – it was horrible beyond conception!
“The police came after about fifteen or twenty minutes that seemed like months.”
“I know that area,” Clint replied. “A friend and I went along there several times. He does botanical research. I think I know where you’re talking about. It’s about three hundred fifty meters from that to the water almost straight down. The angle meant he fell and rolled about three hundred meters.”
“That was a long way to fall!” Jon exclaimed.
“No. It was a long way to be pushed,” Clint countered. Everybody looked surprised. Suzanne was standing, mouth agape, showing shock.
“How..?!” she cried.
“I know that place. It simply could not have happened like that.
“You may have been in shock and may not have noticed a few very telling points. That would be natural.”
“But ... but the police said we had... I mean, they came and checked absolutely everything and said it was unfortunate, but obviously an accident!”
“It obviously wasn’t an accident if you know a couple of things about that place,” Clint replied.
A Look at the Scene
Clint thought for a moment about what the girl said in the restaurant. He knew the minute she described what had happened that no one fell exactly in that small place and didn’t end up on the road. He wouldn’t have rolled across the road and at an angle that would make him fall into the one small ravine that would allow the body to reach the bay. It was displaced from where the little rain-stream fell next to the road about eight meters and slightly upward.
The strange bird call said a lot. It explained, to Clint at least, that someone was waiting there for the body. That someone rolled it up to the ravine and pushed it over. The call was to let someone else know the conspirator was there and ready. That one could be below and close on the road under the lip the stream fell over and couldn’t be seen from the ledge.
Clint was on the bus for Almirante, just past Chiriqui Grande. The spot of the “accident” was about forty kilometers ahead. He talked with Ernesto, an Indio friend, until he got off at the 46KM marker to go on out to Tierra Oscura. When Clint saw the yellow tape by the road he called, “Sparate!” and got off. It was early, he had nothing else to do, so what the hell?
He walked back to the tape and noted the small spots of dried blood on the road that led from just below the stream fall to the little ravine.
The body rolled under the guard rail? It was only eighteen inches high and there was small brush crushed where the body went under. The body fell on the road, rolled 10 meters slightly upward, went through that brush under the rail and into the one two-meter wide spot where it would end up by the bay?
Uh-huh! And then Count Dracula stepped from the side, chuckled evilly and flew off across the bay!
Clint went to the base of the trail, scanned it a bit, then went to the other side of the fall area and made his way to the dry streambed. He carefully checked among the rocks, finding a small pocket knife and a celular. There were a few odd coins. Those were all items that would fall from his pockets as he rolled.
The celular was a mess, but the SIM card could be read in any Mas Movil phone. It might tell him something.
He puttered around a bit more, finding nothing, then went to the road in time to flag down the next bus for Almirante. He was in Bocas Town at four thirty. He went to the police station and spoke with Sergio Sanchez, the head of the unit there. He hadn’t been in on anything to do with the accident. Clint told him what he’d found and gave him the celular. Sergio called for a Mas Movil phone and put the chip in. The phone had been used to make five calls out. The five were to only four numbers in the directory. The oldest was only two days ago.
“Bought a cheap celular here to use while in Panamá, then he would give it to the Indio kids or something when they left. Standard practice among backpackers who will be here a month, then move on,” Sergio said. “The names in the directory are Lars, Bob, LF, ZH and Chas.
“Where was the celular?”
“In the streambed where he rolled above the road. That little rain run-off cascada. No water unless it’s raining above.”
“That little run-off fall not far from Pastore? A body fell off the top of the fall and rolled into the little drainage ditch to the bay? Bullshit!” Sergio exclaimed.
“My reaction exactly. I was wondering why the police investigators didn’t see that little detail from a hundred meters!”
Sergio called and spoke with somebody in the Changuinola station. He was told the police weren’t there to investigate because there were ten people who witnessed it and it was ruled an accident. The police recovered and transported the body to Changuinola. It was to be cremated tomorrow and the ashes sent to Sweden.
“I order a complete autopsy. CSI complete,” Sergio demanded. “That was no accident! It’s not even possible a body rolled ten meters uphill and through that heavy brush under the rail. It was murder. We have ten suspects.”
“Eleven,” Clint corrected. “At minimum.”
“Eleven? Ah, yes! Someone was on the road to push the body into the ditch. The trouble is, we don’t know the name of number eleven.
“We will!”
“I noticed that the whole bunch were wearing those tight Spandex things every time I’ve seen them. Were they wearing that stuff up there?”
“Hmm. According to ... yes. They always wear that kind of thing when they go out for climbing or surfing or those kinds of things. Most are blue and white and some are green and yellow, some are other colors.”
“Well, I think maybe another little thing fell into place with that bit of information. It could be important.”
Clint talked a minute more then went to his house on Saigon Bay, checked over his e-mail and phone messages, then went across to his neighbor, Judi Lum, to catch up on the gossip. He told her about the socalled accident. She said she’d heard a little, but didn’t have any details. Just the normal gossip.
She would get the details. There was no one like her to find little things that turned into big things very quickly.
Clint went back to his place, then took his boat out to Bastimentos to visit friends, returning at dusk to clean up and go to the Lemon Grass for some excellent Thai food. He talked with a number of people there and at the Toro Loco, then went across to the Barco Hundido when it got started at about ten o’clock. Six of the backpackers were there. Four had gone to David, but would be back the following day. He didn’t learn much more, but now had met six of the eight remaining people.
He also met Jac (“Oye ahm Zhok DUmon”) Dumond. He wasn’t impressed, though the slick gigolo-type was certainly trying his very best to impress everybody. He did mention that he knew that Lawrence Swenson (“LAW-rahnz SVEN-sohn”) who had died over on the mainland. Their families knew each other. They were among the, like his own, elite in Europe.
“Yeah! Elite pig farmers!” Yveth, a girl Clint knew in Bocas Town, remarked just under her br
eath. Clint grinned. She grinned back.
Clint went back to the police station to see what Sergio dug up. The complete autopsy wouldn’t be completed until tomorrow around noon if they didn’t find anything new. He had a list of the suspects that included Jac Dumond, the French man who had suggested the place who Clint met at Barco Hundido.
Jac Estrange Dumond, 26, France, traveling alone. Cancun, Mexico, Managua, Nicaragua, San Jose’, Costa Rica, Bocas del Toro, Panamá. 2 wks. Cancun, three days, Managua, 2 days, San Jose’. Four days so far, Bocas. Police record, Paris and Versailles, France, for minor fraud 2009. No felonies.
Paul Sontag, 24. Erik Marks, 24, Lawrence Swenson (victim), 23, Belgium, Sweden, Mexico City, 4 days, Bocas del Toro, Panamá, four days.
Annette Johnson, 24, Helene Ingrid Wolz, 24, Switzerland, Sweden – same
Gustav Borsen, 23, Lars Larson, 27, Chastity Norstedt, 24, Norway, Sweden – same
Robert Robertson, 25, England, Sweden – same
Liam Fontaine, 27, Suzette Lizette, 27, France, Sweden – same
They met in a club in Echols, Sweden in person, though they had been corresponding for some time over the net and with Skype. The trip was planned for three months. All are from”good” European families and are independently secure financially, being in the computer site design business. All speak English, French, Italian, Spanish as well as native language, though most of the families travel extensively and have holdings in various countries. Most wealthy; Larson, Lizette, Marks and victim. Least secure (though substantially); Fontaine, Robertson, Sontag.
There are no police records on any of them except for very minor things typical of teenagers the world over, though those families do not garner publicity and records can be expunged by wealthy people, much as happens in Panamá.
