Clint Faraday Mysteries Collection 5 books: Murderous Intent Collector's Edition

by Moulton, CD

  Martin “Marty” Todd was a regular traveler in New Zealand and as far as Hawaii. He had been to California once in the past. Two years ago. Clint noted the dates he was in various places. He was a somewhat known competition surfer, but hadn’t won anything not local.

  Not much. He got the second list.

  Chester “Chet” Vincent and wife Ann.Marie. They went everywhere together. They had been married for three years. Reading between the lines, she paid the bills and he was a personable handsome younger man living off her. There wasn’t much to find on the net except that she had inherited a lot of land and money and a ranch in the outback that made her a few thousand per month. She had met Chet four years ago while in Sydney on a business trip. She had quite a lot of free time, due to the fact her father had set the ranch up with a system the foreman, a George Miller, controlled. He was good at the job, being the kind who understood that working for a percent was a good thing so long as he could up the income. He got a sliding percent. The more profit, the higher his percent of the take. She had been married once. Her husband had died in a fire on the outback ranch almost four years ago. He was trapped between two fires that had gotten out of control. They were burning old dry grass for the rains that would come in a couple of weeks. The wind changed, making one of the fires cross the road he could use to escape. He started the fire to the side that would burn toward the road. The one on the other side was burning away from the road. The wind changed. He and another man were caught with no way to escape.

  The other married couple from the area were Frederick “Freddy” Derne and wife Linda. They hadn’t traveled very much. They both worked in Brunswick, New Zealand. They had saved money to take this trip for three years, since they were married. Freddy was working for a textile plant where she was the bosses secretary. It was love at first sight. They both liked water and sailing. Surfing was secondary, but they were both better than average surfers.

  Those were the seven on his primary suspect lists. Nothing stuck out. Nobody had a police record beyond parking tickets in importance.

  So. While he was at it he might as well look up the others.

  Six hours and eight large mugs of coffee later he didn’t have a lot, though he had three set aside as needing further investigation. Janis and Patrick Matheny could stand a bit closer look. They had several times been arrested for loud and violent encounters with each other. She accused him of chasing other women, he accused her of chasing other men.

  Lonnie Johns was a bit of a brawler. He drank too much and became belligerent at times. He had a sudden and very violent temper. He was diagnosed as type two bipolar and seemed to be doing well the past year and a half with lithium therapy. He understood his problem and would take the lithium when he showed certain signs. He didn’t like it, but knew it was necessary if he was going to stop the symptoms. He worked for an agricultural company. Deliveries.

  That didn’t mean a lot – or it could mean everything. Did he have the lithium along and was he using it?

  No one was out of it. Three were the most likely to be involved. Lonnie Johns was least likely for the venom angle.

  Clint thought about it a minute and brought up Washington, Seattle. There is a serpentarium. Iffy, but well within possibilities.

  That was as far as the comp was going to get him with what he had to work on. Time to start meeting the suspects.

  Digging Deeper

  El Critico (the popular brothel/restaurante/bar) was fairly busy. Wade Morrow was there so Clint decided to try him first. He approached him and told him he would have to get some information. It would probably be easier here than sitting in the police station. Morrow agreed. He didn’t think he knew anything, but would be more than willing to help if he could. Murder on a boat he was on was a bit exciting in a negative way. He knew damned well the murderer was still on that boat.

  “Anyone stick out as likely? Anyone having any kind of argument with the Moores?”

  “No. We get along. Any arguments wait until the tour’s done. Get into anything serious and you get dropped off at the next port and you don’t get back on. That’s part of the deal.”

  “There doesn’t seem to be anyone who would have a motive from what I’ve learned,” Clint said. “It’ll be something from the past, I suppose.

  “Did you know them before the tour?”

  “We ran across each other a couple of times when the waves were good at a certain place. We had a couple of beers together once, maybe a year ago, in Point Blanc – that’s a sort of popular area for surfers in Australia. I saw the Vincents there and another place. Marty and I met each other in passing. I may have met Freddy Derne one time, but can’t be sure. I never hung out with anybody on this trip before this trip. I didn’t have any likes or dislikes. I’ve become friends with most of these people. When we’re in places like Ecuador was going to be we tend to party until we can get out. I’ve made a sort of ... more than friendship with Nan Earle. We’re casual about those things on these tours. Have fun, so long as it’s not a problem for anyone else.”

  Clint nodded. “Does that hold for the married ones?”

  “Definitely not. Like I said, so long as its not a problem for anyone. There aren’t many swingers on these cruises. Surfers are like that. Have fun ‘til you have a wife, then it’s over for the fooling around. Of course, that’s only on the cruises. I think the Matheny pair would like to swing. They don’t, though.”

  He seemed affable and honest. Clint put him way back as a suspect.

  He moved the Matheny pair, as Wade called them, a little more ahead.

  He chatted a bit more, then went into town and onto the wharf. Bob Kelvins was sitting there with Cathi Sanders. Clint stopped and asked if they would mind a few questions. Bob shrugged. Cathi said, “Why not?”

  “Did you ever notice any friction between the Moores and anyone else?”

  “Nothing serious,” Bob replied. “They seemed pretty alright. We all liked them. We socialized a bit – me and Marty and Ell and her. Ed and Lonnie hung out a little. They would go with one of the chicks apiece. They hung around a little with Chet and Ann. Sometimes Jan and Pat. Fred and Joe hung out a time or two with Ed. We all get along. Nobody owns anybody except the chained.”

  “Jan and Pat did have a few words about him spending time with Ed and Sandy. He told her she didn’t have anything to worry about if he was with the two of them. She would have something to worry about if he was only with Sandy, maybe.

  “It was more in fun, but I think Jan was a little pissed. She wanted to go to a shop in Acapulco and Pat was on the beach with Ed and Sandy.

  “I guess I’m the only broad aboard that knows men do not like to shop. That’s mostly why Bob and I can get along so good. He understands that women do not like football and fast cars.”

  “Chet and Ann have words, but not with anyone else. She wants to shop everywhere all the time, he hates that. She told him once ... never mind. It was about looking at some expensive clothes and wigs and shoes. He said that wasn’t the kind of things surfers cared about, she said ... never mind.”

  “That she pays for everything so he could at least go along with what she likes?” Cathi said. “It’s no secret from anyone that he’s bought and paid for. He’d like to swing, but he knows very fucking damned well he couldn’t get away with it for one picosecond!”

  “Very short chain?” Clint asked with a grin.

  “Yeah! A choke chain!” Bob agreed.

  “No ideas who might have sort of eliminated a nuisance?”

  “I heard it was poison?” Cathi asked.

  “Yeah. A rare type.”

  “I suppose I could kill someone, but it would be a knife through the heart. I’m not the girlie type and poison’s a girlie way to kill someone.”

  Clint laughed. They chatted awhile. Bob was never in it in any serious way. Now she was as much as out of it. She was definitely not the girlie type.

  Chet and Ann Vincent moved up. He could think of several
motives with their situation. For either of them. Jan and Pat Matheny were up a notch, too.

  Speaking of whom, the Vincents were coming out the wharf to the boat. She said she wanted to get a few things to take to the hotel. She wasn’t about to stay aboard the boat in port. She liked the services at the hotels that they couldn’t get on board. Chet talked with Clint while she went aboard to get her stuff. Clint asked about anything he may have seen or heard, but he said he didn’t know much about the others. He’d run across some of them various times, but hadn’t developed any close friendships. They were somewhat friends with the Dernes. Two married couples, you know. Spending too much time with the singles could lead to problems. They were after different things and went different places.

  “You hang out with the Mathenys any?” Clint asked.

  “No.” Short and sweet. Chet, at least, didn’t like the Mathenys.

  Ann came out with a little plastic bag full of cosmetics and a small carry-case with a change of clothes. They strolled back to the hotel, talking about how perfect a place Puerto Armuelles could be.

  Clint went back into town and to the bar at the end of the street where the gringos hung out. The Matheny pair and Lonnie and Joe were there. Clint talked with them and didn’t learn anything new. Johns was moved up just a little on his suspect list when he started to gripe about the slow service to a bit of an extreme. He caught himself and said he had a problem at times. He was bipolar and would appreciate it if the people he was with would tell him he was going off the deep end. He had medicine that would control it. He could have forgotten to take his medicine and ... but he was the brawler type. You still didn’t know how he might react in a given situation.

  After a little Clint could see what Chet felt about Jan. She was somewhat demanding and more than a little spoiled. It was reinforced in a slight subtle psychological way by the upper-class English accents. Clint wondered why they were on the tour at all.

  “You’re staying in the hotel?” Clint asked.

  “Not me!” Lonnie said. Joe said he was. The Mathenys definitely were. They could have some luxuries that one couldn’t receive on a boat, don’t you know, Old Sock.

  “Why come on a tour if you don’t like the lifestyle on a boat?” Clint asked innocently.

  “Oh, just a lark,” Pat replied. “The better half likes the surfing, so do I, it was available, we came.”

  “I’ve been on other tours, but they were larger vessels,” Jan added. “It’s not the same – but we are enjoying the adventure, don’t you see. No regrets from this side!”

  “That does not include a murder or two, thank you!” Pat said. “Other than that, it’s been a rather pleasant time.”

  They chatted some more, then went to their various places for the night.

  Clint wanted to know a hell of a lot more about the Matheny pair. They didn’t fit with this group.

  On the other hand, they didn’t not fit to much of a degree.

  He checked the comp and went to bed. It had been a long day.

  In the morning Clint went to the boat to talk awhile with Capt. Les. He admitted that he had preferences among the people aboard, but dared not show it. That would be bad for business.

  “What about the English pair?”

  “They’re a bit stiff at times, but are alright when they relax. It took a day or so for them to get to know the others, then they were just another part of the group. They all have that kind of mind-set. Surfers will be a little stand-offish for an hour or two sometimes, then they find common interests and things get easier fast. The only one I have to watch this trip is that Johns guy. He has to take medicine or he gets weird and pushy. He tells you that and asks that anyone who sees him getting to be an asshole tell him fast so he can take the medicine. He’s been regular so far. I watch him, but I sorta like him.

  “The married ones can be a pain, but that’s to be expected. I tried to have a tour for them and another solely for the single ones. It just didn’t ever happen. The Mathenys would fit with that. The Dernes fit Okay with either. The Vincents are a little hard to figure. It seems like he’s a piece of private property sometimes. I guess it’s about the age difference. I know my own ideas have changed a little as I got past thirty.”

  “You tend to mellow out in a lot of ways.”

  “Yup! I still like some of the chicks better than the guys, though!”

  They chatted awhile longer, then Clint went to the police station. Romero was investigating several things more in the regular police investigation way. He wasn’t making much progress in finding who was a killer, but he was eliminating some of them. They compared notes. Not a lot was much different – except Les and Bob were on Romeros list.

  “Why?”

  “They knew these people before, the Moores. They had been in Cancún twice when both of them were there. Lister and Kelvins say they never met them, but they were there. They could have met them in oh nine or eleven.”

  Clint nodded. It was certainly a possibility. He considered their personalities and left them at the bottom of the list of suspects.

  All of them had gone to the beach a few miles to the southeast for the surf so Clint spent his time conversing with people he knew, then went to his beach house computer to spend a couple of hours tracing. He learned very little more – except that the Mathenys were traveling mostly on credit. They did that and paid everything every February and October. He got his inheritance, a trust, in February, she got hers in October. Both were secure and assured income.

  The Vincents had been in some minor trouble in Paris once. She had accused him of seeing a local prostitute. It turned out she had seen them talking in the park. The prostitute had approached him and he had declined. Ann had come from a shop just as he turned her down and she had walked off. Ann assumed she was seen coming out of the shop. She started accusing him, loudly enough to attract a police officer. Two old men on the bench a meter away said the woman was a prostitute and had been there long enough for Chet to tell her he wasn’t interested. Not two minutes.

  It could mean something, but probably not. Everyone on the tour knew that he was bought and paid for, so there wouldn’t have been anything there. That didn’t eliminate that Ann was jealous of younger women around her property. If it had only been Sandra killed he would have that one on top of the list.

  He moved her up one notch.

  He sat back, sighed, and called Judi in Bocas to be filled in on what was happening back home. Things were normal.

  He took a cab to the beach at Las Olivas, said to come back for him in an hour and walked around. There was a stake where the bodies were found, but the tide had been in and out a couple of times since they were found and there wasn’t anything to be seen.

  Two Indio children about eight years old came to ask if he was there because of the bodies. It turned out they were the ones who found them. They went along the beach at every low tide to collect shark’s teeth and such the tide brought in. They said everything moved to the east with each tide because the current flowed that way. If there was a very strong rip tide a lot of things would be brought in. That gave Clint an idea. He strolled down the beach with the kids to where a small deep stream flowed into the Pacific. The tides would push the water up as they rose, then let stuff come back down as they receded.

  He went along the stream for a distance, until it got muddy. Going back toward the beach he found some things in the mangrove roots. They would be deposited there as the tide went out from full. The roots were in the water only for an hour or so at high tide. The distance from where the bodies were found meant the tide would start to rise about the time things from the same time got there. Something could have moved into the stream, which would have only a slight current in because of the water flowing out – but there hadn’t been much rain for the past week or so meaning the flow would have let things go quite a distance upstream. If there was anything there it would be in the muddy section. The Indio kids said he could use their father’s cayuca
at high tide. Five hours. Dark.

  Maybe he would get a good light and take them up on the offer.

  They went back to where the taxi was waiting. The driver had a girl with him so Clint waited a few minutes and made some noise telling the children he’d be back just before high tide. They told him where the house was on the stream, grinned and pointed with their lips to the taxi. The driver got out of the back seat as soon as he heard them and the girl got out and waved as she walked toward the road.

  Clint went back into Puerto Armuelles and fixed a late lunch, then went into town to buy a powerful flashlight and some extra batteries. The surfers came back at just before five. He greeted them as they got out of the taxis. They said it was a perfect day. The waves were good, if not excellent, and they had a lot of fun.

  Clint went home, got into clothes that would take a lot of abuse and took the taxi of the morning to the neat clean house of the Indios. He was invited in for some supper, fish, yuca, rice, patacones – delicious. Arturo, the boys’ father, took Clint down the stream in the cayuca. Clint searched among the mangrove roots on one side going down and on the other going back up. He found very little. A scarf that was expensive and not the kind of thing sold in the area, some plastic bags, a few cans and bottles, all local types of things.

  They went back to the house where Clint stayed visiting until about ten o’clock, then he called the taxi and went back to Puerto Armuelles with a set of new friends. The night wasn’t wasted even though he didn’t find what he went after. No time is wasted when you meet new friends.

  He changed and went to the gringo bar, then to El Critico. He saw a couple of people from the tour and said hello, but didn’t have any questions to ask. He met a woman he’d known for some time and spent the rest of the night at her place.

  In the morning he would see what he could find about these people. So far, nothing was pointing to anyone more than others. What he had was a collection of tiny details that were no more than suspicions of vague possibilities. He had nothing specific. He couldn’t even find a direction among the group. This wasn’t confusing. There wasn’t anything to cause confusion. There wasn’t anything. That was the whole of it. He liked a puzzle. There wasn’t even a piece of a puzzle to put ... what a mood!