by Moulton, CD
“Could be interesting. I’m not doing anything. I’ll come over to see what’s what. I go crazy with nothing to do but lay around and get fat.”
“Hah! Fat, you’ll never be. You’re too much the active type. You can stay in my beach house here. Nobody’s here until the end of next month.”
“This afternoon. I can leave my boat at Chiriqui Grande, take a bus to David ... I should get there around five thirty or six.”
Finding Background
Hank O’Neil, a big man in his late thirties with a head full of almost shocking red hair, greeted Clint as he got off the bus. He had his Jeep to take them to his place southeast of Puerto Armuelles on the Pacific. It was across from and very close to the wide clean beach at Las Olivas. The day had been perfect, the afternoon very nice. There was a small rain that would get there just before dark so the night would be a bit cool and pleasant. It could be hot in that area unless there was the usual light breeze coming in off the ocean. The beach house Clint would occupy while there had an almost constant breeze. It was almost low tide with the tide incoming. The beach was more than a hundred meters wide now, but would be only six or eight meters at high tide. The tides ran more than fourteen feet here, making for some dangerous rip-tides and undertows.
Hank showed Clint the big refrigerator full of various things and the freezer full of fish, shrimp, etc. He would eat very well indeed! Hank had known Clint for some time. He had stayed at Clint’s place in Bocas and Clint had stayed here before. He had set the automatic coffee pot at six thirty so there was a full pot waiting. Clint’s main addiction, as Hank knew, was coffee.
“We’ll talk about the bodies in the morning. I’ll take you with me to Romero’s and he can give you the details. They still haven’t been identified.
“If you’re not too tired we can go to the bar for a beer or two. I know the locals will want to say hello and such.”
Clint agreed, poured himself a large mug of the excellent coffee ( Panamá coffee is known to be among the world’s best ) and said he’d clean up and fix a hamburger or something and would be ready to go. Hank insisted that they would both grab a bite at the bar/restaurant, so just clean up.
They went to the bar at the end of the street by the ocean. Clint knew quite a few of the people there. The gringos frequented the bar and the word was out that he was there – which meant a number of the Indios would come. They usually preferred drinking at their own places because of the language and culture differences. Clint spoke Guayme, but the dialect was different here.
It was a truly great night. He met a girl from Denmark who knew another girl from there who had stayed with Clint a couple of nights in Bocas. She decided she would like to stay with him here if he was amenable.
He was!
“Clint, we’ll meet Romero at Yola’s for breakfast. The ME, Doctor Geraldo, will be with him. He says this is a very strange thing, but I don’t know what he’s talking about with all that water snake venom stuff. You might.”
Clint agreed. They set off for Yola’s place, the popular restaurant where the entire staff and most of the early customers knew Clint. They spent the first half hour catching each other up on what was happening here and David and in Bocas, then Dr. Geraldo came in and Clint went with him, Romero and Hank to a table at the end. Everyone knew that this was a private conversation and left them alone except to wave when they left for work or whatever.
Clint considered moving to Puerto Armuelles – again.
“I don’t know if you’re familiar with the water snake off the reef in Australia?” Geraldo began. “It’s among the most deadly poisonous snakes in the world. It’s found nowhere else so you can understand why I am perplexed that we have two bodies on the beach here who died from that toxin.”
“Yes. Pelamis platurus. I’ve come across it once before in Florida, but simply as a side-issue when we were trying to find what toxin killed a girl. It was considered at first, but the bite wasn’t consistent with the one that killed her for some reason. I’m surprised you knew about it here.”
“The deterioration in the cells and nerves is very distinctive. I found it by working backward on the internet, then sent the information to Australia for confirmation. They sent the chromatograph signature and it matches.”
“Any other marks that would give us any other clues?” Clint asked.
“They were dead for forty five to eighty hours. It’s pretty hard to tell because of the way the poison interferes with deterioration processes. A lot of the usual autopsy markers simply couldn’t be used.”
“Identification is first in importance to me,” Romero said. “If we find out who they were we can possibly find connections to other things.”
“I don’t know anything except there were two bodies on the beach who died from a very rare and specifically locally occurring toxin. This ain’t the locally occurring place.”
“Yes. One male and one female. Twenty three to perhaps twenty eight years of age. Both had light brown hair and brown eyes. She was five feet six inches, one hundred twenty pounds. He was six feet two inches and one hundred ninety pounds. Both were of slender athletic build. She had a small butterfly tattooed on her left ankle. He had no distinctive marks. Both had perfect teeth that showed regular and very good care. They appear to be Europeans, Australians or gringos. I’m running a DNA match. I believe they will be closely related.
“There’s not a lot to go on yet. The DNA or prints may turn up some answers.”
“Is there a good enough record of current flows that you can find the most likely direction they floated in from? We know the time they were deposited on the beach fairly closely. We should be able to locate the area where they were thrown into the water.”
“We do?” Hank asked.
“Speed of current and the direction. They were deposited as the tide went out. We can tell within a very few minutes when the tide was at the level where they washed up.”
Romero nodded and got up. He said he’d be back in ten minutes (which means at least an hour in Panamá). Dr. Geraldo said it was almost time for him to be in his office so they’d go there in a few minutes.
Clint had an idea and said he wanted to make one short stop, then he’d be there. He went to the malecón (wharf) to talk with two Indio friends fishing there. They knew the local currents and direction better than the “official” records would show. They came from the northwest and flowed to the southeast since the tide change until low tide. They were about six KM/hr more than fifty meters from the shore. Twenty meters from the shore they were much stronger because the waves caused pauses and increases.
That meant the bodies came under the malecón or a little out from it. Coming under would probably result in being snagged on a piling. They came from outward, moving toward the southeast. They had been in the water for about 35-75 hours or more. At 6KM/hr that was 210 KM or more. That far was in the open Pacific after the end of the peninsula Puerto Armuelles was on. It wasn’t likely bodies came around the peninsula so they were killed at sea ... but that time would mean tide reversal. Once or twice. 50-105KM. It could have been along the peninsula or just south of the Costa Rica end.
Clint went to the police station and to Romero’s office. Romero said the flow was probably about five to eight KM/hr from west to east. Clint said the Indio fishermen said it was six from that direction until they were within fifty meters off the beach.
“The tide was at the level he was found at four twenty and where she was found at five five,” Hank said. “I got that from your friend, Solbiero. He knows that kind of thing better than any records you could find.”
Clint nodded. Romero had a call from outside and went to the records room to return with a printout that said the two bodies were Sandra Moore and her brother, Edwin Moore. They were from New Zealand. She was 24 and he was 26. They were known surfers who won some competitions. They were from a political family. Lawyers and elected politicians, were moderately popular among their age group, she had been m
arried for three years when her local council member husband was killed in a plane crash while flying back from Sydney, Australia. June 4 of 2009. Passport records showed they had been to several Latin American and Mexican cities on a surfing tour. They left recently from Acapulco, going to Ecuador. They were on a boat trip. The boat was expected in Ecuador yesterday. It had shown up at dawn today, those two passengers were not aboard. No one knew when they left the boat. It had some minor engine problems and had anchored off of the peninsula that was shared by Costa Rica and Panamá. Romero had a walky-talky to communicate with records as the information was received.
“Well, that makes it our case. They were pretty definitely dumped in our Panamanian coastal waters,” Romero declared. “I must contact the captain of that boat and ask that he returns here with all the passengers who were aboard at that stop.”
“You can order him to do that?” Hank asked.
“No. I will request that he does. To do so will cause much less of a time delay of their trip than having Ecuador arrest and send them in a month or so after the legal delays and such. The itinerary says they would come here in one week, anyway. It will engender changing the times of the ... a moment! They were to go to Ecuador and stop here as they returned to Nicaragua where they would cross to the Caribbean side to continue back up the coast with stops in Cancun and Rotan. Enrique is speaking with Captain Ramos of Mexico at this moment. He is saying, yes? ... That the captain is saying it will even be a very good thing. The waves are good here and there aren’t any worth the name in Ecuador at this time. He is asking his passengers if they would approve of coming back here with the good waves instead of staying where there aren’t any. Yes? ... They should arrive tomorrow between four and five in the afternoon.”
“Every once in awhile we do get a break!” Dr. Geraldo said.
“We do that!” Romero agreed. “I will be most happy to accommodate the passengers, who will probably wish accommodations on land after more than a week on the water. I will arrange all that with the Hotel Central. This is a slow time of the year here and they will enjoy having the rooms filled for a change.”
“I don’t like this! I don’t like it at all!” Clint warned.
“Why..?! What...?” Dr. Geraldo exclaimed.
“If things are going this smoothly, watch for the sudden stop!”
“True,” Hank replied.
The Suspects Arrive
Clint watched as the passengers came off the gangplank to gather on the big wharf. Ernesto Gevarra, a local guide, would take them to the hotel, the ones who hadn’t opted to stay aboard. Some, like the captain, preferred to live aboard at all times possible.
Clint got the captain aside when everyone who was going to the hotel had gone and the others had decided to wander around the town a bit. He would have to search through whatever records the boat carried on its passengers.
The boat crew was Captain Les Lister (“Lester Lister. I guess my Pa had a weird sense of humor.”) and Mate Bob Kelvins. They sailed from San Diego, California, three times per year with these tours. The first stop was Acapulco, then El Salvador, Costa Rica, down to Ecuador, then up to Panamá and Nicaragua, where the tour went across country to go down to the Caribbean side of Panamá and across to Curacao and up through the islands to Miami, from where they went home. The stops here so far had been San Diego, Acapulco, El Salvador, Costa Rica (They didn’t go to land in Panamá on the way down), Ecuador and return to Puerto Armuelles.
He handed Clint the passenger information list. He had all their passports in the safe except when they needed them to go ashore. The arrangement here was that he kept them and gave Romero the list he was giving Clint. If he needed the passports for anything they could be studied on the boat unless the holder signed them out and gave them to the police themselves.
Clint said he might need information from some of them. He didn’t know yet.
First was Sandra Lynne Moore. Clint had the age and general description already for her and her brother, Edwin Leigh Moore. New Zealand passports. They’d used them in the USA, Mexico and El Salvador. They’d stayed aboard for the day and night in Nicaragua except for three hours at the beach. Not good waves and the rest were ready to move on.
Les said the tours were very laid-back and they made up the itinerary as they went, the majority decision. When there weren’t good waves in a place they would move on after one day, usually. This trip had found good waves as they passed Panamá. They expected better waves in Ecuador, but that hadn’t happened. The group were ready to come back to Panamá for two weeks instead of two days in each of the places there weren’t any waves. The tour was popular because of that rule. Fixed tours of two days at each of six beaches where there weren’t any waves didn’t make for a good time.
Wade James Morrow, 26, New Zealand passport. Canada and the US before boarding.
Cathi Weston Sanders, 24, Sydney, Australia. Canada and the US before boarding. A note: Trvl w/Morrow. Les explained they were together, but not married.
Martin Marvin Todd, 27, Sydney, Australia. Canada, Mexico and the US before boarding.
Chester James Vincent, 23, Sydney, Australia. The US before boarding
Ann Marie Sloane-Vincent, 36, Sydney, Australia. The US before boarding. Wife of C. J. Vincent.
Ellen Mae Goode, 22, BC, Canada. The US before boarding.
Nancy Jean Earle, 23, BC, Canada. The US before boarding.
Janis Rhonda Matheny, 24, Liverpool, England. Australia, Canada, Mexico and the US before boarding.
Patrick James Matheny, 26, Liverpool, England. Australia, Canada, Mexico and the US before boarding. Mathenys = brother and sister.
Joseph Ford Perle, 24, Copenhagen, Denmark. Mexico and the US before boarding.
Lonnie John Johns, 25, Seattle, Washington.
Frederick Donald Derne, 28, New Zealand. Canada and the US before boarding.
Linda Florence Goodman-Derne, 26, New Zealand. Canada and the US before boarding. Wife of F. D. Derne.
That was the list. Nothing stuck out very far in that list. Clint felt there were several more likely, marginally, suspects. The obvious were those three from New Zealand. That was so close to Australia that the next on the list would be them. After that, it would be digging for any times of possible contacts before getting on that boat. This was one of those things where the clues would be in that kind of records, most probably.
So! Get to it!
Clint took his copies to the beach house and turned on the computer there. Hank came in to say he would be in Frontera the rest of the day, then to Santiago to help some friends with a land purchase he had vainly tried to keep from ever happening. It was one of those things where they could expect some old Panamanian to show up every year for ten years to claim his or her great grandfather grew a pineapple on the property forty years ago so they had the ROP – except they would have to get a new plano because the old one was lost. It was a headache situation all the way around, but people won’t listen to what they don’t want to hear. The land was beautiful and was what they wanted and the old man selling it seemed sincere.
He probably was. He couldn’t know who would come out of the woods to make a claim.
Clint said it was better you than me. He realized he would get the blame for not warning them.
“I put it in writing and they signed that they had the information and it was a personal decision to go ahead with it.”
“So?”
He got the finger and a grin and sigh for that.
Hank drove off and Clint spread the papers he had around to enter several lists that the computer would correlate. That would give him a starting place, at least. As soon as he had something to ask questions about he would talk with the people involved. He was going to eliminate anyone not from the Australia and New Zealand area for the time being. Whoever did this had snake venom found nowhere else in the world.
Wade Morrow
Cathi Sanders
Martin Todd
Che
ster and Ann Vincent
Fred and Linda Derne
Seven on, six off. Unless there was someone he wasn’t considering for one reason or another. Or something.
First, which of them were the more likely?
He’d concentrate on the unmarried first. Three.
There is one hell of a lot of information on the web about most of us. It’s a matter of finding that one fact about one person buried in four billion facts about five thousand persons.
There were six pages of reference about Wade James Morrow. There were a minimum of eighty four Wade James Morrows. He would have to use another, more limiting search to find the one he wanted.
An hour later he had it down to six of them. He swore at his stupidity and went to the boat to get the passport information on the five. While it didn’t settle a hell of a lot it would help to have some information there. Like place of birth, which was on about a third of the sites he was searching.
He got an idea then to add. Trace present ... no good. He had that.
Profession might help, but these three didn’t have one listed.
He went back to the comfortable beach house after a delicious meal at Yola’s.
They were surfers. That would limit things a lot, but only if they’d done something noteworthy.
Wade Morrow had used his passport the way Clint already knew. He worked construction for two years and saved the money to spend a year traveling. He was a regular surfer in three spots in Australia and New Zealand. Not in competitions, but planned to do competition surfing after this trip to familiarize himself with conditions elsewhere. Friendly and somewhat gregarious.
Cathi Sanders had been in a number of other countries before this trip. She was a loner type, but was liked and friendly. She competed in both badminton and volleyball as an amateur. Other countries were Australia, England, Denmark and France. She could have had contacts with any of the others in the past. Clint noted the dates she was in those countries.
