Clint Faraday Collection C: Murder in Motion Collector's Edition

by Moulton, CD

  Someone else on this bus met with the killer – and probably with Santamaria.

  Then Santamaria would have spoken with him or her on the bus. It was agreed that he didn’t seem to know anyone there.

  Damn it! What the hell was the connection with Sucha? Sucha didn’t seem to know anyone else on the bus, either. There simply had to be a connection.

  Maybe the connection was that Sucha saw something? That seemed the most logical answer.

  It still came back to that car.

  Clint knew a little about breaking simple codes. If this was just a substitution code that would possibly work fairly well. He had nothing much else to do so would spend a little time on it. It was a number code. Those were the easiest to break.

  He copied the pages and turned off the comp. No sense in killing the batteries. He had the first paragraph to work on..

  The highest number was 34. It was only used once. There were series of from one to nine numbers, then a double space between, so those would be words. The most common two were 2 and 28. There were words that ended in both. It was Spanish if that’s all Santamaria spoke. A and O. Both were used alone. 16 was used alone, though not very often. That was most likely Y. Clint took the laptop from under the bus seat out to look over. It had an English keyboard. It wouldn’t have certain symbols used in Spanish, such as the accent mark used in such words as Panamá. That could be important.

  He stared at the keyboard. A was the first letter on the second line. Did that mean ... no. It was used alone so line number on the keyboard didn’t mean much.

  He counted in every way he could think of. A was the second letter if you went from top left downward as the keys lay.

  Y was number 16 by that system. It fit. O was #28. The code was something he came up with fast so it was easy to break it fast. He could read the pages.

  Investigacion finca por Williams. Esta grande con vista magnifico del mar. Tiene tambien una problema con DDP. Cuestion contra plano. Posiblemente hay problemas con aplicacion por titulo. Hay cuidado!

  (Investigation of the land for Williams. It is large with a magnificent view of the sea. I have a problem with the ROP. There is also a question against the site plan. There will possibly be problems with any application for a title. Take care!)

  The second stated: There was a man from the agency who was supposed to be a thief who worked with thieves. The land is there and it is real. It is doubtful that a title will be issued for that land until many questions are answered. There may be several who claim to own it. It is from a long time ago when there were not good records kept of such land that no use for could be found at that time. It was not accessible and there could be no certain way to survey there. My recommendation is to seek land elsewhere unless a government guarantee can be obtained. I will find the names of the persons doing this that Mr. Williams can use to bring investigation against.

  That person was on this bus. There was one real estate person on the bus. Estevez. He was a lawyer and lawyers here are famous for being the worst kinds of crooks. (Really! As bad as or worse than the states!)

  Clint knew better than to concentrate totally on a single suspect in a murder case regardless of his personal opinion. Estevez was a prime suspect, but not the only suspect. He would be on the bus because Santamaria was on the bus. If he drove a black Mitsubishi with two stickers in specific places and a Panamanian plate that began with 542 he would concentrate almost exclusively on him. He had been burned with sure things enough in the past to know better than to ever take anything as 100%.

  His next step was ... what?

  Opportunity. Okay, he probably had that. All of them, with the noted exceptions, did.

  Didn’t they?

  Santamaria had been dead for less than an hour when found. That established a very short period of time when the murder could have taken place. From what Clint knew about fixing the time of death, Sucha hadn’t been dead much longer than three hours. Probably closer to two. Learn who had opportunity from four thirty until six thirty. Anyone near that culvert back there would be noted when anyone went back that way.

  Clint called them all together and asked that they establish where they were from four thirty until about six thirty.

  Guerra was with her children. Dona Comacho was in the same culvert and would know if anyone left from the front. The children would know if anyone left from the rear, though it could be easy to see prints or whatever if anyone looked back there. It was muddy.

  Jose and Ana were together. Neither could have left the other didn’t know about. Everyone was skittish and woke up at the least noise. The Indios, except Vargas, were together and no one left the culvert.

  The Sandros family were together and no one came or went.

  The gringos were out of it.

  Dona could have left. It was just possible.

  Arturo Taylor could have left.

  Guillermo Robinson could have left.

  Pedro Vargas could have left.

  David Estevez could have left.

  Five out of twenty. It was drawing in.

  Salvador Mario said Vargas did not leave his culvert. He could see it from where he was and he didn’t sleep after about two o’clock when his father came. He had plenty of sleep and felt it would be better if one of them stayed awake to watch. Sancho Lopez said he could see Salvador in the end of the culvert most of the night. He didn’t sleep, either. This was on his bus and he was horrified about it and couldn’t sleep. He wished he had saved a beer because that would let him sleep a little.

  Four out of twenty.

  He thought about things, then decided to try something else. He asked how many of them could drive, had licenses. Panamanians. He wasn’t about to let a foreigner use his car in a case like this. The police would harass the hell out of them if they were stopped. Judi raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. She knew Clint had something in mind. Sancho and Cecilio had to stay with the bus.

  Maria Guerra, Jose Ricardo, all the Sandros, Guillermo Robinson and David Estevez drove. Taylor was probably out. Three out of twenty. His prime suspect was still in it. The noose was drawing closed.

  How trite!

  Clint needed a way to eliminate two of three. He could probably put Dona out of it. Robinson and Estevez were his real suspects – and he didn’t see Robinson as a killer. Trouble was, he couldn’t see Estevez as a killer, either. As much as he wanted it to be him, as sure as he was, personally, he didn’t see it. There was something missing.

  Judi got him aside and asked what that was about. Clint explained about his theory that someone driving a car was neck deep in it. He could describe the car, all he had to do was connect one of them to it. She said she’d find out if any of them had a black Mitsubishi.

  Clint was talking with Sancho a few minutes later and asked if he had a way to find who owned a black Mitsubishi with a sticker in the window and one on the bumper that had a Panamanian license plate that started 542.

  “Not out here. Five minutes maximum back in Chitre,” he replied. “What kind of stickers?”

  “I couldn’t read them in the pictures.”

  “What colors?”

  “Green and a sort of bronzy color with black letters.”

  “Black letters that said Hertz? It was a rented car. The driver should have the return receipt with him.”

  “Oh, shit! Sucha had a receipt for a rented car! I saw it in his wallet!”

  He went to his car, unlocked the trunk and took out the little box of evidence for Sucha. There was a receipt in his wallet for a 2009 Mitsubishi 2 door sedan. He turned it in just before getting on the bus.

  “What the unholy hell is going on here?!” Clint demanded. “That would mean that he killed Santamaria, now someone’s killed him! Do we have two murderers on this bus?”

  “I hope sincerely not! One is far too many!” Sancho cried.

  “Now I’m not even sure I’m looking in the right place for motive. This is not anything like I was thinking.

>   “Or is it?”

  He went back to his car. Judy reported she hadn’t found anyone who noted any of the others in a car at any time. He said he found who had the car. Sucha.

  “What does that add to your case?”

  “It adds zilch minus! It destroys part of what I was trying to prove or disprove. It makes part of it irrelevant. This is one of those one step forward and two back deals.”

  “I’m getting a bit worried, now,” she replied. “When it was something you could maybe understand it wasn’t so scary. Now we have a nutcase who’s killing people and it’s someone we all know who can pose as a regular person.

  “Clint, I know you argue, but it has to be the people from Colón. This is getting to be a regular scene there and they’re the only alibis they have. If they’re in it together they’ll naturally back each other up with the same rehearsed story.”

  Clint nodded slowly. That was something he’d considered. He wanted to reject that it may be more than one.

  There wasn’t much to do. He did remember what was said about going out the back end of the culverts. It was muddy there and would keep footprints for months. All of them ended in that mud pit.

  He climbed on top and went to the end. There were no footprints back there at all.

  He noted that he could grab the top and swing up with a little effort. It would be a lot easier to go back down from up there.

  Would anyone note seeing somebody on top? Was anyone ever looking up there?

  One person might. He went to ask Salvador if he saw anyone on top of the pipes at all during the night.

  No, but he could only see the front ends. The back ends were behind and he couldn’t see through the pipes.

  Well, he now knew a minimum amount about something indefinable. He could use a cup of really strong coffee.

  Animal Sounds

  Judi came in to say that Nilsa, the daughter of Maria, said she heard some animals during the night. She thought it was just wild animals. They were bleating about something. It was like dogs barking, but it wasn’t dogs and it wasn’t barking. She just didn’t know whether it was earlier or later.

  Clint thought, then went back to Salvador to ask if he’d heard the animals and when was it? Early or late?

  “Early in the morning and late at night. Both. Monkeys. They make noises all night.”

  “Oh. Howler monkeys.”

  “Whiteface monkeys, too. The Whiteface are not so noisy at night. Only two times last night. Perhaps two hours before the light. It was their call that there is a snake. It is more high and more long. It was not too close.”

  Like a bleat. Four o’clock or thereabout, Clint thought. Twice. The killer coming and the killer going – but why that far away?

  He thanked Salvador and sat to talk with him for a few minutes. He was more than average bright. He observed everything around without commenting upon it unless asked. Clint asked who was the killer. Did he have an opinion?

  “I have what I think, but it may be wrong and for the wrong reasons.”

  So he wouldn’t tell what it was. The Indios are like that. They’re perfectly well aware that they would tend to consider that a certain person was the killer simply because they didn’t like that person. There was no one here he would tend not to like because everyone was trying to get along.

  It would be the natural culture clash between the Indios and the blacks. Salvador was aware of that and wouldn’t say anything against them unless he had very solid proof.

  He went back to the car and talked with Judi. She agreed the Indios wouldn’t speak against the blacks because they knew they didn’t get along with them. The fact those were from Colón added to that.

  “The blacks don’t have any such thing,” she said. “Elena keeps saying it has to be the Indios. They’re that kind of people.

  “I told her it was blacks from Colón who had that reputation, she knew it was mostly not true, but she does the same thing to the Indios. It goes a mile over her head.”

  “Tell me about it! People and their prejudices are the same everywhere and all the time. The Spanish will be sure it’s the gringos. The gringos will probably be the only ones who don’t have an opinion because they know it’s prejudice. All they want to do is get out of here to finish their vacations.”

  “I want to get out of here, myself. It doesn’t have anything to do with vacations. It’s got a lot to do with dead bodies. Everything was so good until Santamaria’s body was found, now it’s all suspicion and fear. All of us. We know there’s a killer, maybe a psycho, among us. It could be almost anyone.”

  “Don’t say anything to anybody, but it’s down to three.”

  She looked thoughtful, then nodded. “You won’t say who they are, huh?”

  “One of them. Somebody from outside.” She gave him the one finger salute. That was the most unlikely of all the possibilities. If anyone was anywhere in the near area they would know about it. The Indios, in particular, would know in minutes,

  Clint strolled toward the bus, thinking. There might be something on that bus that they missed. Something in a place where it would seem to be natural. There was a nagging that he had seen or heard something.

  What?

  He sat on a large boulder that had rolled onto the edge of the road to think. What had he seen? What was nagging at him?

  He closed his eyes and mentally went through everything he’d seen about that bus. The laptop. The memory sticks.

  It had something to do with that laptop. He got the nagging when he thought about it.

  Okay. They found the laptop case with no laptop, only some cell phones and chargers.

  Not the laptop! The case! Those chargers! One was a standard type that would work with most cellulars here. The other was a fancy thing that only fit certain expensive types. Usually only one model.

  So? Did that mean that a cellular phone was missing? He hadn’t found anything among them that was at all out of the ordinary here. No expensive ... but there was that one man using a satellite phone. He said there was no signal, but Clint was sure he was talking into it.

  It was Santamaria. The nag was that his satellite phone was not among those found. He had called out. He did have a signal.

  Did he contact his killer? Was there someone else following that bus who was close on the other side of the mudslide? Could someone have actually simply climbed over the slide and come here to kill him? Then why Sucha?

  Same reason. He had seen something. The Whiteface monkeys were disturbed when he was going back or something.

  It didn’t quite fit. There was more that he didn’t know then that he did. These side-trips did bring things back, like that satellite phone. He knew better than to begin to believe they were more than speculation

  He went on to the bus. That phone could have been anywhere and would have probably not been noticed to any extent. He had lists of what was found in the luggage still on the bus, though it wasn’t at all likely it was there.

  He had lists of what was in the luggage at the culverts. It would be there and he probably would have noticed it at that time. The problem was that it could be put in a pocket or stuck behind a rock or put in a bush until that search was done. That was an item too easy to hide.

  He went through the things from the initial search that were still on the bus. Cecilio said only three people had come to get their things and he had stayed right with all of them while they got whatever it was, mostly toothpaste and shaving things and fresh underwear. Two were the gringo and his wife and the third was Robertson for underwear and his notebook.

  A search of the bus didn’t turn up anything new. He did find a short list of telephone numbers, international, in the Santamaria papers. It had his satellite phone’s number on top. If he had another he could call it and see whose pack it rang in.

  Yeah! Right! They wouldn’t have turned it off first thing!

  He went back to the culvert and said he was going to walk to where they were fixing the road to see how
long it would be before they could pass. Several people decided to walk with him so they made a little parade. Salvador walked beside him on the left and Estevez on the right. They chatted about various things. The weather was really unusual this year and getting worse every year.

  Clint had his celular in his pocket. When they walked over a little bridge over a stream it made a slight noise. It was the alert that there was a signal. He took out the cel and called Dave, his nutty musician friend. Dave was in Chiriqui Grande and would be in Bocas in the afternoon. He’d water and care for Judi’s and Clint’s flowers. Clint told him about what was going on.

  He then called the national police and reported the murders and some of what he’d found.

  His celular was Movistar. Two others got the signal and called out. Mas Movil didn’t get a signal and Claro didn’t at that spot.

  They went on to watch the equipment moving the mud, putting it into large haulers to dump where there was another serious washout about to happen. It would be used to shore up the cut below the road and a concrete retainer built to hold it there. This mudslide would be used to stop a washout. Very efficient. It would be about ten hours before the road was passable.

  Clint had surreptitiously inspected above the mud. He had no way to be certain, but it didn’t look like a way across was likely up there. Someone could have gone onto the ridge or other side of the mountain, but that wouldn’t leave enough time to get to the bus – unless there was a path someone knew about that they didn’t.

  They returned to the culverts with the news. They stopped to make a call or two at the one small spot there was a signal. The signal died while they were talking. That could have been for any number of reasons.

  Salvador was actually a better conversationalist than Estevez, who had dropped back Penny Goodson’s Spanish wasn’t good, but she managed to talk with him, Clint filling in the spaces both ways.

  They got back to the culverts and told everyone the road would be open in about ten hours. They had called back and forth to the workers on the road crew and a bus would be there to take them back to Chitre as soon as they could get a path that was reasonably safe to walk across. They could bring their things to this side and be ready to cross when the path was open. It would be crossable in five to six hours. They couldn’t make it faster because the wet mud kept sliding down as they dug for the path.