Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition

by Moulton, CD

  “It does?”

  “She was sedated. She could fight back very little. Anyone more than one fifty wouldn’t have to plant their foot to be able to apply the pressure. Not enough to leave that mark. One twenty to one fifty would be that mark.”

  He lifted the pillow to study the face. There was a small spot on her left ear. He called Rita and asked if she’d noted the spot before. Rita said there was no mark before. Sally had been washed thoroughly the night before.

  “What is it?” Rico asked.

  “It looks like that face powder the gringos use,” Rita suggested. “Maybe just talc with some other coloring like the stuff you put on bites from bichos. The gringos have to have the kind to match their skin color. Tonteria.”

  “Yes. The analyst will find it exactly,” Rico suggested. “It would seem our assassin was a small bit careless.”

  “They think we couldn’t find them if they left a signed statement if they’re the gringos around here,” Rita said. She knew Clint agreed with her and wasn’t included in the statement, as several others weren’t.

  “Well, it ... was either one of the women or Carlos Vermont,” Clint replied. “Carlos uses a bit of color on the old burn scars and none of the men are that small, other than him. The women, I’d say Monica Standing or Yvon Leonardo – my personal ... oh, shit! It almost worked! That was why she looked shocked for real and he looked so scared. I’d just said they ... and earlier ... I’ll be damned!

  “Rico, arrest the Cartworthys!”

  “They did it? You can prove it?”

  “She uses a lot of make-up. It will match that spot. I said earlier that they were doing the obnoxious act so they wouldn’t be noticed if they stopped. I then changed it to the fact they were trying to draw the attention of everyone to keep it away from certain others. I was right, except that they used it here for their own purposes. He ranted and raved out there so no one would notice when she wasn’t around for a few minutes. HE was there making a lot of noise to keep you occupied, but where was she?”

  Rita thought, then looked at the glass. “I gave her the tetracycline and she went for a glass of water to take it. He was acting so asshole ... I thought she went to the bano to take the capsule. It will be ... no. She had on those cotton gloves she always wears.”

  “Ah, yes. Then who else would leave NO fingerprints?” Rico asked.

  “I think a magnifying glass will find cotton fibers on the glass instead of fingerprints,” Clint suggested. “No one else here wears cotton gloves at work. Everyone wears latex gloves.

  “What in HELL is this about?”

  They found a small scrap of paper that may or may not have anything to do with the case. Rico bagged it. The man from David came and used a magnifying lens to say there were a couple of fibers on the water glass. Possibly polyester fibers from women’s gloves. They would appear to be cotton from casual observation.

  “If she wears polyester imitation cotton gloves that’s even better than fingerprints!” Rita said. “You can’t get them anywhere but Panamá City. They have only real cotton everywhere else.”

  “Careful! Lots of people go from here to Panamá City,” Lopez, the investigator warned. “You have to be able to eliminate them if you bring it up in court – which means we have to eliminate them.”

  “They ARE eliminated!” Rita cried. “NO ONE else here today was wearing gloves except doctors. Those are these latex gloves right here!”

  Lopez nodded and grinned at her. “Then we have her and her husband dead. She did it, he was accomplice. Officer Holas, you may bring them in for questioning. They will demand a lawyer and that you contact their embassy. You may delay that for forty eight hours.”

  “They’ll know I have it figured and will probably be gone by now,” Clint warned.

  “More proof!” Rico replied. “I’m having everyone not known to me watched. All of the ones Rita said were here today.”

  It was Clint’s turn to nod respect for the officer.

  “This is totally bloody damned intolerable! These ... storm troopers actually stopped a public BUS and ... and FORCED us at gunpoint to get into that disgusting bloody damned GARBAGE truck and DRUG us to this ... this dirty JAIL because we were in the hospital from eating some kind of filthy ... whatever in hell they call vegetables in this godforsaken HOLE! I demand to speak with the American Embassy RIGHT NOW! I demand a LAWYER! I’m going to sue this HOLE off the map! I have NEVER!” Gerald ranted while Sylvia looked totally mortified.

  “Your inflection is wrong in all the wrong places,” Clint replied conversationally. “I’ve said repeatedly that you have no acting ability whatever.” He was there at the invitation of Enrico and Lopez. They had chatted while the police truck went to intercept the bus the Cartworthys had suddenly decided to take to David. They laid it out to where Clint could bait them into saying something more – though they had them in a vice already for the murder. He wanted to know what it was about.

  Gerald sputtered a bit more while Lopez, Rico and Clint sipped coffee. When he ran down Clint asked him and Sylvia if they wanted coffee. They did, so Rico brought the little electric urn in.

  “Okay. I’m more calm now. I want to speak with a lawyer and to call the American embassy,” Gerald said after about five minutes of silence.

  “No. You are a citizen of the UK carrying a UK passaporte,” Lopez replied. “Your wife can call the American embassy tomorrow if you’re still being held – and you will be. You can call the UK embassy then if you think it will help you.

  “This is a questioning. Until we arrest you you can’t call a lawyer. It will be most interesting to find you, a supposed tourist, have a criminal lawyer to call here.”

  “CRIMINAL..!? What the bloody hell is this?!” He started to redden and Clint said to drop the act. Murder one was definitely a criminal act, as was accessory to murder one.

  “MURDER ONE!?” Sylvia squealed. “Gerald did NOT murder anyone! The very idea...!”

  “No, he didn’t,” Rico said. “You did. He was merely acting as accessory by distracting everyone while you did it. We have the proof, so don’t waste a lot of time with the indignant act. Clint has already clearly stated on several occasions that you are terrible actors.

  “We would like to know what’s behind it, but don’t need that. That part’s for Clint’s private investigation.”

  “Don’t need motive? How droll!” Sylvia sneered.

  “No. You are guilty until proven innocent here. We have more than enough proof to see that you both get eleven years detention in Panamá City,” Lopez explained.

  “What proof might that be – unless you don’t mention such little details to the accused here?” Gerald asked sourly. “I don’t believe this is actually happening! You have nothing!”

  “I’m CSI here. I assure you, we have you very solidly. You will be sentenced within ten days,” Lopez replied. “What we have is some of that make-up your wife has all over her. The sunscreen based mascara, I think you call it. We have the glass she took into that room.”

  “You can’t show I took a glass into any room! This is preposterous!” Sylvia cried. She really was scared now.

  “Of course we can prove you took the glass into the room,” Rico insisted. “That is easily done with modern techniques or even with the older methods.”

  “There are no fingerprints of mine in any room in that hospital! This is insane!”

  “Who said anything about fingerprints?” Lopez asked. “Is it because you thought those gloves would prevent your leaving any?”

  “Er, well, they would.”

  “But you left fibers from the gloves on the glass,” Clint pointed out.

  “This is totally ridiculous! Fibers could be from any gloves!” Gerald snarled.

  “No. They’re from the gloves taken from you when you came in. Those gloves will also have the identical make-up as found on the body,” Lopez replied. “That will be the only sixty five percent white polyester pair of lady’s gloves in t
his town. You can’t get them anywhere here except Panamá City. Your husband was busily making a disruption out in the reception room about pretended diarrhea or something such. He’s accessory prima.”

  “What do you mean, ‘pretended diarrhea?’ We had what you call Montezuma’s Revenge! It was terrible!” Sylvia said. “This is insane!”

  “You had extreme diarrhea, in fact?” Lopez asked.

  “Well, of course we did! We had the stupidity to eat what passes for bloody food here! I have never ...!” Gerald ranted.

  “Knock it off with the act!” Clint demanded. “You had extreme diarrhea and never went to the bathroom in the forty five minutes you were here? Neither of you? Give it a rest! There’s no way out for you.”

  “I see I’ll have to try to explain what we’re doing here,” Gerald said. “It’s all very true. We did fake that. We’re investigating a scheme to try to get control of the canal by getting control of the refinery by Syria. The Wallace woman was giving us some vital information. She was a paid undercover operative of the British government. When Sylvia went in to get the information she found her dead.”

  “That’s exactly what happened!” Sylvia said, a slightly too-cagey look on her face. “She was dead when I got to the room!”

  “Oh? And you trained operatives don’t know how to enter a room and leave without leaving proof that you were there?” Lopez asked. “A multi-millionairess was a paid operative of the Brtish government?

  “As you said, how droll!”

  “I was rattled,” she whined. “It meant someone was onto us! We could be next! That’s why we tried to go to David!”

  “Oh, then your embassy will confirm your reason for being here,” Clint suggested. “I can get any of the information I need for my own investigation directly from them. All I want to know now is who to investigate.”

  “Er,” Gerald replied, brightly. “That godfather type mafia hood, Larince or something.”

  “Lariez? Into something like that? Ridiculous!” Rico spat.

  “You, a trained experienced intelligence agent, were investigating someone and don’t even know his name?” Clint asked. “As the broad keeps saying, preposterous! I don’t think they’re going to say anything I want to hear, Rico. You might as well bring in the judge and arrest them. It will take ten minutes in the Panamá Pen to loosen them up.

  “Well, I’m going to talk to Paulo. I’ll inform him we’re onto his scheme to take over the canal by taking over a refinery a few hundred miles away for Syria. He’ll get a good laugh at that one, no doubt. I suppose you can let them call a lawyer early. They won’t find one who would want his reputation ruined for trying to aid in a hopeless case.

  “Gerald and Sylvia, do enjoy your stay here in Panamá as long as you can. Caio!” He waved and walked out. Lopez followed him. “Learn anything?” he asked.

  “A lot more than they think. Mentioning Syria was a very serious mistake. I think he knows it.

  “Lopez, make a careful note of anyone who calls them or comes to see them. It will lead to something they can’t hope to explain.”

  “Explain? Them or the visitors?”

  “Yes.”

  Lopez looked puzzled, but didn’t say anything else about it. Clint went back to his hotel to find Vern Wallace and Sam Downy waiting for him. They said some others were going to be there soon and they wanted to talk to him. Vern said he wanted to know what was behind his wife’s murder and these people kept popping up in some strange places at strange times. Clint said he would meet them at El Critico at seven. Downy started to say something and Vern grinned.

  Clint went to the Grande to suggest to Paulo that he happen to be in El Critico about seven. He could scare the piss out of the people who were trying to make him the goat.

  “I know the expression from you politics,” Paulo replied. “The goat for what?”

  “I wish to hell I knew!” Paulo laughed and said it might be fun – in its own way.

  What’s Going On?

  “Clint? I can’t find what the hell is going on there,” Marko reported. “I’ve heard a few hints about a big find of something. Gold or something. Maybe emeralds, but it’s very quiet. A university assay on some kind of ore sent in has something to do with it.

  “I was talking with Dave. He says the Indios around Boqueron said there were a bunch of professors toward the west of the area looking all over the mountains. One of them found something in a stream. They took a lot of equipment in, then someone came and made them leave. That’s not far. Chiriqui, but why are those people collecting at Puerto Armuelles?

  “Here. Dave wants you to check something out.”

  Clint waited for a few seconds until his weird author friend came on to greet him and chat about the area, then he said he was talking with “Wanda” and had him very discreetly trying to find why a certain engineer from Texas had gone to the area and made a few suggestions about the refinery.

  “Texas? What part?”

  “Houston.”

  “What’s his name and anything else you can give me?”

  “Arnold. William Arnold. Manny’s checking on him now. I just got the info this morning. You know the Juan Jimenez family in San Andres – between San Andres and Arriba Blanca? Juan might know ... something. Orisa started getting gifts from someone for no reason. Juan questioned her and she said she had a secret and couldn’t tell him. You know how that is with the Indios. They’re very strong on certain types of promises.”

  Clint chatted a bit more, then decided to go to San Andres. He knew about the Indio code and knew how to get around it if the promise was made is certain ways. Orisa was about ten or eleven years old so wouldn’t have a clue as to what the “secret” meant. He would wait until the next morning for that. He was starting to see a thing or two.

  Monica Standing was walking past Rita’s place. He stopped her and said he had seen her a few times around, but hadn’t met her. He was Clint Faraday.

  “Oh, yes. The detective. Batty said something about you, I believe. Yvon told me you insisted he leave Panamá or he’d end up as dead as Sally. It was those horrible Cartson people who killed Sally, not that Paulo person, so you might have been wrong about who, but you were on the money about the danger.

  “Do you think any of the rest of our little clique should leave or is that pretty well settled now?”

  “I don’t think any of you are in danger from that source. You’re playing a very dangerous game, though. There’s entirely too much money involved and the personalities brought together leaves all of you in danger to one extent or another.” He hoped he’d left the impression he knew what was going on. She looked a bit wary and said he was probably right. Land speculation at this stage of a developing industry could bring in some very shady and even dangerous types. It always did. They talked a bit more about the horrible economic situation in the states. She about how impossible it was for Bush, he about it was Bush’s doing in the first place.

  He soon went back to Hotel Central and cleaned up. Six ten. He’d be at El Critico at seven sharp.

  How many would show up?

  “Clint? A little very interesting note. It might come in handy there,” Marko said when Clint answered his cell phone on the way to El Critico. “Bill Arnold is a petroleum specialist. He finds deposits of crude. Worked in the states – Alaska and Louisiana – Venezuela, Mexico and Sudan.”

  THAT was unexpected. He said it was information he could very certainly put to use.

  He went in to have Paulo wave to him. He talked for a minute, then went to the long table where the gringos were sitting. Yvon introduced him to the ones he hadn’t met and he sat. They talked about what that type talked about – money and investments – for awhile, ordered a good meal, then Sam Downy asked him, now that the obligatory small talk was done, why they were there.

  “Basically only because the silly game you’re playing is about to start involving my friends here. As you can see, Sally Wallace had a tendency to talk too much whe
n she’d had a couple snorts. The Cartworthys were probably brought in to keep an eye on such as her. Their act was very entertaining and comical at times, but sort of got thin before too long.

  “I was brought in because of the funny-money you thought was being imported by Paulo Lariez. It was a huge mistake to have the Cartworthys waiting in Frontera to accidentally meet me on the bus and start their act. They simply have no ability whatever, so far as acting goes.

  “Well, Batty learned a little lesson there. You haven’t got a clue as to how those people are going to react. He was with Sally when she’d had a few and was running her mouth. He’d made a few statements about the paper, but had enough sense to shut up about it. She brought it to a head and they got cut up a little. I solved that part for you, which is the real reason I’m here at all. I earned the fee. It wasn’t Paulo, it was the Smith creeps from Colón.

  “That brought my friends into the equation to far too much of an extent. They’re innocent in this mess, and you’ve managed to start a war between the Indios and the Colón cruds.

  “It’s all a silly fantasy land. What I’m trying to find now is if it’s a deliberate scam among a few of you against the others or if you really think you’ve found something that’s going to make you all even richer. Money does strange things to people who can’t think past the moment in a realistic way. The trouble with living in a dream world is that you eventually have to wake up.

  “There are small deposits of a lot of things here. You don’t even have to salt a mine. There are hundreds of small lodes of any number of things that look good on the surface, but are in places and amounts that make it a losing proposition before you start. Paulo found one lode of ore that will actually make a profit, but that’s damned rare.

  “The other caveat is that the government owns a lot of types of those things. You have to get a permiso to extract stuff. Gringos have to include Panamanians. Carlos here is in a very shaky position with that point because he’s actually Colombian with a permanent residency, not Panamanian. I already have a permanent residency and I’ll apply for citizenship here as soon as I can. I love Panamá.”