by Moulton, CD
The only physical clue he had was a scarf that could have come from anywhere and the method of murder. The only reason he considered the scarf as a possibility for a clue was that there wasn’t anything else. The poison? If he could find that, it would give him something solid.
No good! The poison had been used. If the killer had more it would be at the bottom of the Pacific somewhere within two hundred kilometers. Surely, no one would be stupid enough to keep it.
Unless they planned to use it again. Even that would be inordinately stupid. The killer would surely have gotten rid of any trace of the murder weapon. It would be the only connection with the victims. So. Find another connection.
That would have to wait for morning. Maybe Bob or Les could remember something that would give Clint and Romero a starting place. The poison used was the only thing that hinted of a direction. That direction included 7 people immediately and no one was excluded except Janis and Patrick Matheny, his prime suspects considering the personality standpoint.
Modifying the List
Clint went to Yola’s for desayuno. Dr. Geraldo was there and they chatted a bit. Nothing new had turned up about the autopsies. The victims were in very good health. They had a slight trace of THC in their bodies, but that would be as much as normal in their group. Ed had some evidence of having used cocaine a few weeks ago, but it could be from any source. Definitely no regular or repeated use. If there had been much bruising it was close to the injection points and was deteriorated to the point it couldn’t be found.
“There were two injection points on each, about a centimeter apart. Someone tried to make it look like a natural snakebite.”
Clint nodded. That gave him another piece of evidence that may or may not mean anything. The killer didn’t know the poison was easy to trace to a specific area. That put some of them way down on the list, but most of those were down there already.
Janis and Patrick Matheny came to knock on his door soon after he returned to the beach house. He was a bit surprised, but invited them in.
“Social call?” he asked.
“Really, we want an idea of who to be careful of on that boat,” Pat replied. “We’re more than a little bit leery of everyone now and that is a most uncomfortable situation. We want to leave the tour, but that copper won’t allow anyone to leave the province or county or whatever they call it.”
“Surely, you can’t possibly suspect Pat or me!” Jan wheedled. “I mean, we are not the type of people who commit murder!”
Clint bit back his reply and replied, “You are automatically material witnesses. You were there on the boat at the time of the crime in a limited group. Someone knows something. It could be something they aren’t aware they know. How many times before in your life has someone said something and you said, ‘That’s right! I hadn’t thought of it! It had completely left my mind!’ It’s something that happens to everyone at one time or another.”
“By Jove, I think you.... You know, that never entered.... It has happened numerous times! By Jove, I think you’re right!” Pat exclaimed. “Remember last Wednesday night when you said there was some kind of thing missing from what Ann was saying and you couldn’t think of what it must be, Lovey? I said maybe that it was something too much. I never listen to that woman-babble.”
“Yes! I said she repeated things in just a little different way to make you think she knows more than she knows! It was about all those fires in Australia. She was there and her husband at the time died because of one of them. She tries to make it sound like she was fighting the fires – personally, you know. I said, ‘She said the fire she was fighting was in one place, then – it had completely left my excuse for a mind – she had it in another place.’ I used almost exactly that expression!
“Very astute of you to think of that. It’s very true in far too many instances. Now I’m a bit concerned that Pat or I may have some little incriminating detail hidden in our minds that could make a murderer try to ... Oh, my dear god!”
“That’s something the police here and everywhere else are trained to consider, first thing,” Clint said. “Too many times the material witness knows something he or she doesn’t realize. It can pop into your mind unexpectedly at the oddest of times (Shee! He was sounding like an Englishman! Knock it off!) and can be the one tiny detail that locks a case up.”
“By Jove, that’s true!” Pat cried. “Lovey, we are as stupid as people think we are not to have ever even given a moment’s notice to the obvious! Of course! That is our value to this sordid affair!
“Mr. Faraday, I have to thank you for hitting me over my hard head with the obvious truth of the matter. I knew it, but it never ... I’m about to use the expression yet another time! It’s something that happens all the time! By Jove, it’s true!
“Lovey Dear, we owe Mr. Faraday a debt of gratitude. We think, just because we’re from a higher station, that they are envious of us here. It’s not true! There is a good, solid, certain reason for it!”
Jan was looking shocked and a little scared. She nodded and said, “Thank you Mr. Faraday. I do tend to fail to consider these things. I’m spoiled a tiny little bit by my upbringing, I know. I do try to compensate for it. I’m a snob, to put it bluntly. Snobs tend to consider things in the real world from a personal perspective. We miss the facts when we search for explanations. That’s because we accept only the explanation that leaves us without blame when things go wrong.
“I do know it. I do try to stop myself. It is not an intelligent approach to reality.”
They chatted a bit more. The two loosened up and weren’t really so bad as they first seemed. Still, when they left, Clint thought, That was weird! It felt rehearsed, but didn’t really sound like it was!
He sat back to think, then went to the computer. Those two were now at the top of his list again. There had to be something somewhere to connect them. There wasn’t a reason for them to be there at the beach house except to try to see what the police thought. If there was a question about them it had to be misdirected. Coming there could well be an attempt to misdirect him.
Would they use that specific poison to try to make it look like it had to be done by an Australian?
Misdirection. They couldn’t bring confusion in so were going for misdirection.
He spent four more hours on them exclusively. Nothing.
He sat back again, poured another cup of strong coffee, thought, then grinned to himself. “I do it myself, don’t I?” he mumbled.
Either the misdirection was going to work or he had a very big clue to connect someone to something. Question was: Who to what? He knew part of the answer. Maybe “why?” was operative here. He needed the connection between the Moores and the killer.
He went back to the computer keyboard. He started checking on fires in Australia. He also started checking on the dates things happened. There was a contact, but which one?
Maybe “where?” was more important. He had to place the Moores, at least one of them, at a specific place at a specific time for this to work as a solution. It wasn’t going to be easy because of having to look at other things to find what he needed and suspected.
One thing was damned certain! The Mathenys were not off the top of the list! There could be some kind of secondary set of facts that led to the killings. They could be as much as incidental to something else. Too many of his cases ended up that way.
The way to find this was the boring – and often most critical – part of detective work. More hours on a computer or following people who didn’t go anywhere or do anything 99.9% of the time. The computer had reduced the time looking for things that are in records somewhere tremendously. In the “old” days he would have to communicate through radio or telephone to the location those record were kept. Now he could find them online in most cases. It was almost entirely a matter of knowing where to look.
The Mathenys were quality people of “station” according to her. That meant a good place to look would be in society pages of the lo
cal papers. Wentford Under Bighamton. A small but very expensive area. Matheny.
Okay. Town records first. Matheny, Harold Tristan, was the owner of a large hold he’d purchased from Lord Hittington in 1955. He owned a clothing supply with connections at this time to large Chinese suppliers. Worked mainly through Hong Kong connections. Son, Patrick James Matheny, Second Vice President in charge of international distribution. He hired two secretaries who did the work and reported back to him. Married to Janis Claudette Parker. Her second marriage, but first was annulled after one week because the husband had another wife. Very little note of it. That was because of a small reference that Clint went to court records to find. John Jeffry Jenkins, AKA James Jerold Junger. Newspapers had a short piece on them from time to time when they attended a fancy function or traveled. They were considered a bit odd, but that was the norm for the age this day and time, eh what?
Three hours. A lot of nothing. They had been to Australia twice, but were mostly at places where they wouldn’t be ... what did Ann’s husband raise?
He concentrated on her. Some sheep, some cows, some pigs, some grain crops. The sheep could be wool, which could be a connection.
Awfully slim.
He was on her in Australia so brought up the husband’s story again.
Henry Aaron Fielding. Born August of 1944 – so he was a lot older than Ann. Now she was married to another younger man. She was born in September of 1973. She was 29 years younger than her first husband and 10 years older than her present one.
Very successful outback rancher. Some friction with neighbors when he went into sheep herding, but he fenced and kept them in the interior of his land. Active in social causes in a lukewarm way. Very strongly the “Australia for Australians” mentality. Adamantly against any government subsidies for foreigners starting businesses that took jobs and commerce away from natives. Give welfare to Australians only and those must have real and immediate need. Don’t pay bums to be bums.
There wasn’t much about the fire except in local records. Those made terse and succinct into an art form. There was a fire, he got trapped by a wind shift, his funeral was two days later. In other news....
Another day of thousands of details about all of them and nothing new. No one’s position on his list was changed. He sighed heavily and went out on the porch with the sea view. It was almost five and he was dead tired. Actually doing something physical didn’t tire him. This did.
Wade Morrow was walking along the beach. He spotted Clint and waved, then came toward him. They exchanged greetings and Clint invited him in for a beer. They sat on the porch in silence for about five minutes, then Wade said, “Clint, I think there’s some kind of suspicion in the back of my mind about someone, but don’t want to repeat what’s probably only rumor – but it could be important. It’s something I saw in Acapulco when we were getting on the boat.”
“I guarantee confidentiality. Always. I won’t do or say anything if it leads nowhere and probably not if it does.”
“Well, there was a paper Sandra had that she picked up at the marina. It was one of those silly scandal things Murdock or somebody prints. It had a story about a company that Sandy had folded to read. I thought it was a little strange. Something about some person who died at a very convenient time or something. He had a mistress and the wife found out, then he had an accident. I wouldn’t have noticed, but Ed, Sandy and I were just walking up the ramp together and she showed it to Ed. He said it wouldn’t surprise him. It was something that happened a hell of a lot too often anymore. He damned well wouldn’t put it past her.
“We went inside and I didn’t think much about it at the time. I think it could mean that they read something about someone and it connected for some reason. That they knew the person or he wouldn’t have said that in the same way, you know what I’m saying?”
“He sounded like he knew her and wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she knocked over a cheating husband.”
“Exactly.”
“I have to check on another person. It’s someone I’ve had a lot of suspicion about. It would give me motive, which is more than I have now. If she’s the only one with motive it’ll likely be her.”
They chatted awhile. Wade said he’d see Clint later and left. Clint went to the computer. What was the name of Janis’s two week husband?
J. J. J. Two. He checked. He had done that once before, married a woman when he had a wife. He was after the money. He married into it.
Bingo? He died in a hit-and-run accident in Manchester nine days after his annulment. One thing was certain now! Clint was going to do something he very rarely did. He was going to concentrate on one suspect. That could be a big mistake, but he didn’t see anyone else viable.
Still, it seemed too pat.
He sat back to think, then went back to the computer to check the scandal sheet newspapers for stories about them. He checked all of them while he was at it. He didn’t want to overlook one thing because he thought he had found something else.
Uh-oh! Cathi Sanders was living with a man for a couple of months when he fell off a fourth floor balcony onto a concrete sidewalk and died. He was drunk at the time. Cathi wasn’t in the apartment when it happened so far as they knew. She said they were getting along pretty well and were contemplating marriage, but neighbors said that wasn’t entirely true. They had been overheard a couple of times when they got into loud and vulgar arguments.
Both Ellen Goode and Nancy Earle were at a tournament where George B. Hopkins drowned when he was surfing alone early in the morning off of Baja California. The waves were high and it wasn’t uncommon for competitors to practice alone, though it wasn’t common practice, either. It was known to be dangerous.
Clint brought up the autopsy report through the police site he had the codes to enter. It seemed a normal drowning. There was a large contusion over his right eye. It was assumed he flipped and the board caught him over the right eye, knocking him unconscious. He died of drowning.
Crap! Did all of them have a dead body in their past?
He didn’t find anymore evidence of any such thing.
He sat back to think. A small grin lit his face for a few seconds, then he got up, showered and went into Puerto Armuelles. He saw several of the group, then went onto the wharf to talk with Les, who knew nothing more. He then said he’d like a word with Bob, but he was with a girl in town. Clint said it would wait until morning.
More Questions
Clint had his coffee at home, then went into town for more at the hotel café, then went to the wharf. Bob was just coming onto the wharf from his night in town and they walked together to the boat.
“Bob, I need to know a little about a couple of the people on the boat that’s not such common knowledge. It seems there’s a body or two in more than one of their pasts. I’ll ask about more than I’m concentrating on. Don’t make any hasty conclusions about it, Okay?”
“Yeah. Fine with me.”
“Frederick Derne. Does he always get along with everyone or does he get weird once in a while?”
“He’s just a little out of place, but not weird. I’ve never seen or heard anything except for when Linda wants to go some places he doesn’t and vice versa. They work it out.”
“Nan Earle?”
“Just a surfer girl. Her and Ell sort of hang out now and then.”
“Marty?”
“Sort of hard to figure sometimes. Wants to more or less be a loner. Better surfer than he lets on. Never had a problem of any type.”
“Cathi?”
“Surfer girl. Has a temper sometimes, but takes it out on things. She gets really upset about any guy who hits on her and won’t take no for an answer, but she’ll break something. She won’t do more than cut the stupid creeps down. With words, you know.”
“Ann Vincent?”
“Hard to like. She’s possessive when there’s no reason to be. Chet knows which side of the bread the butter’s on. You can’t ask about one of them without getting an
swers about both of them.”
“Janis Matheny?”
“Spoiled and a snob, but she admits it and we all get along. It’s that overdone British accent that puts you off. They’re pretty good people after you get to know them. She says to tell her to piss off when she goes too far. She has a tendency to give orders. We’ve all told her to piss off. She just laughs and says, ‘Thank you!’ She really means well. It’s all in how she was raised. A rich only child. She says that. She tries hard to be a regular person.”
“Sandy Moore?”
“She’s dead ... I see. What did she do or say to set someone off?
“She was a lot of fun. So was he. They didn’t make quick judgments, usually. She didn’t like Ann much because Ann was so suspicious. She said Chet was a kept man and that took any possibility of anything ‘way off the table. She and Janis made an effort to get along and it worked. They started off not liking each other too much – sort of competition. Sandy was good-looking as hell. When Jan learned she wasn’t about to get involved with any married man they became sort of buddies.
“I don’t know if you know the surfer crowd very well. They can turn from cold to friends in a day. They get to know each other and where they stand. The only pecking order is in the tournaments. Outside of that they’re equal unless they do something to make them unequal.”
“Joe is the only other one I need to know anything about. I’ve talked with Wade and he’s another one who admits he has problems and tries to overcome them. He doesn’t get pissed when you tell him he’s out of line. He knows it.”
