by Moulton, CD
Clint noticed the old man hadn’t coughed up anything from the maneuver, but that he had put something in a glass when he dropped across the table. It seemed a bit contrived.
Clint was standing just beside the table and managed to ask if the old man was alright now. He swept his hand around and knocked over the glass he’d seen something dumped into. He grabbed a napkin and mopped it off the table, apologizing for his clumsiness. The old man said it looked like another night in hell for all of them. Even the locals couldn’t be kept from interfering in their family’s attempt to have a little vacation.
“Oh, sorry!” Clint replied happily. “If I see you pulling the ‘I’m choking to death’ act again I’ll stand by and let you croak. I’m sure no one else in your family will come to your rescue again. Do have a nice stay and come back when you can’t stay so long in Bocas.”
“If it weren’t for people like me who come to spend our hard-earned money in this hole there wouldn’t BE any Bocas! I’ll warn you to stay the hell out of my family’s affairs or you will deeply regret it!”
“Now, Pops!” a woman chided. “He was only trying to help. You shouldn’t get so upset. It’s bad for your heart!”
“Hell! He doesn’t have a heart,” another woman replied. “There’s just a piece of ice where anyone else has a heart.
“Don, can we go back to our room? I’m very embarrassed by even being seen in public with your lovely father.”
“You watch your mouth, woman!” Lawrence snarled. “I’ll cut you off right here and you can find your own way home!”
“Oh, please!” she replied. “Maybe I know a thing or two about you that these people would find – interesting?
“Don?”
“Yeah, this party’s over!” a heavyset woman declared. “Pops has managed to screw up another night. Par for the course.
“Sir, I’m Amanda Lesley, daughter of that old rather vulgar and obnoxious tyrant who has so much money to hold over our heads.
“This is Don and Trudy Lesley, my brother and his spouse. Wanda over here is my little sis. Her husband’s George Martime. We’re a truly worthless bunch of ass-kissers, I’m afraid.”
“Clint Farraday, beach bum. You put up with him because of the money?”
“Yeah. And the fact none of us was born with a spine. He has a lots of valuable property in several places like California and Switzerland. Farms.”
Clint grinned at her and got a big one back in return. He nodded at the others and went back to Janice. He had shoved the napkin into his pocket. This was a lot more than strange.
He and Janice went to Bohmfalk’s, then to Bongos, then home. Just as they were getting out of the taxi his cell phone buzzed. It was Tyra.
“Clint? Remember that bunch of Suizas?” she asked without preamble.
“What did they do now?”
“They’re staying at the hotel next door. Two of them are dead. Murdered.”
“How?”
“Poison. Sergio says it’s some kind of really fast stuff. I told him I’d call you.”
“Crap! That old bastard and his sick family have managed to fuck up my night, too!” Clint complained, then said he’d be right over. He reached into his pocket and felt the napkin. He smirked. Whatever that old bastard was trying to do, he’d screwed up big time!
Oddball Family
“What do we have here?” Clint asked Sergio, the cop he knew who worked on this kind of thing.
“Apparently, a nasty old bastard of a father swallowed some kind of very fast poison. The only thing anyone regrets is that one of the others got croaked at the same time.”
“He was Lawrence. The other?”
“A Lesley. Donald.”
That sort of surprised Clint. He expected it would have been Amanda or George. He wasn’t in the least surprised that the old bastard had bought it.
“Think you can find the poison?” Clint asked, looking around the room at the glasses on the end table and the look of general messiness. Amanda saw the look and explained, “He deliberately made a mess in a room so he could yell at the girls who cleaned. He could hide something and ‘find’ it later.” She grinned. Clint liked her. She wasn’t about to pretend she gave a damn if he was dead. He nodded.
“We can trace most things. I’d say curare from the way they seem so relaxed – but that isn’t taken orally,” Clint said to Sergio.
“So maybe it wasn’t taken orally?” Amanda said.
“We think much alike,” Sergio agreed. “Who else drank from that pitcher?”
“All of us except Trudy. She was downstairs with her computer with that Doug fellow in two sixteen since we got home,” Wanda answered. “This is terrible!”
“Oh, nobody gives a happy shit about him,” George said. “Don was a decent enough type. Sort of a neutral person, really, but decent enough in most ways.”
Trudy was sitting in a corner looking dull and lifeless. She wasn’t reacting in any way other than apparent shock. She didn’t say anything or even acknowledge anyone else.
Clint waited until the medical examiner, such as they had on Bocas, came. He checked over the bodies with him. They both found the two small puncture wounds, Lawrence on the neck and George on the arm.
“This seems so, so ... artificial,” Dr. Astrades said. “Someone wanted us to think it was something in the food or drink. Surely no one believed we wouldn’t find those injection spots!
“He takes some regular injections, but on the gluteus, not up higher. Certainly not on the neck!
“The one on the next looks post-mortem to me.”
“They tend to think we’re at least a century behind,” Serg replied. “I think they would have found that a century ago.”
“They want it to look contrived for some reason,” Clint said. “There’s something very odd ... the napkin! Last night he, Lawrence, pulled a silly choking act and dropped something in his water glass. I managed to sop some up. We can analyze it. He seemed to be more upset because I spilled the water than by anything else.”
“When last night?” Serg asked.
“Early during dinnertime. Just at nightfall,” Amanda answered. “We were having our regular family feud and he was choking. Mr. Faraday came to assist and got an ear full of what the old tyrant was like for his trouble.
“Nobody gives a damn about him. We’ll miss Don.”
“You’ll all inherit a bunch of stuff from the way he was spouting last night,” Clint pointed out.
“Knowing that old bastard he’s probably left everything to the kite flying society or something,” George said. “It wouldn’t cause me a flicker of surprise. He never tired of telling us he was cutting every ingrate among us – and that was all of us – out!”
“Or anyone else, for that matter,” Amanda agreed. “Maybe we’ll all get a little freedom for what’s left of our lives. That’s something.” The rest nodded.
There was a bit of a commotion in the hall. A local lawyer, Raul Rallardes, came barging in to demand what had happened to his client. Clint told him if Donald or Lawrence was the client, case closed. If it was one of the others, nothing.
“It was Mr. Lawrence Lesley. I was drawing up some papers for him. I tried to call him several times earlier and got no answer. He never had the two things I TOLD him to get stamped notarized! My god! This is terrible! I TOLD him he had to go to the notary and get ... he had time this afternoon. WHY didn’t he just do that ONE little thing? He kept saying he paid ME to do things. I TOLD him he had to take it to the notary himself, that I can’t ... I TOLD him!”
“Well, something seems ... it was a will?”
“An assignment. I can’t discuss it.”
“If it has to do with his death you’ll discuss it at length with a court judge and then be charged with withholding information in a criminal case,” Serg snarled. “Don’t pull a lawyer act with me! What kind of assignment?”
“Er, he, uh, wanted to assign his total assets to the, uh, Smithsonian Research Center
here. I suppose, now that he’s dead and the papers weren’t notarized so they aren’t in effect in any case, I can tell you about it.”
“I see,” Clint said. “Thank you.”
“Who will pay the fees?” Rallardes asked.
“Nobody,” Clint replied. “Note the services weren’t completed.”
“No! He already paid you! He always paid everything in advance! Everything! It was his basic hard rule in business. Pay in advance on a contract and you can demand service on a timeline or get a reduction for non-performance. What the hell are you trying to pull?” Amanda demanded.
“He’s a lawyer. He’s trying to get paid twice because he thinks no one will ever know,” Serg explained. “We’ll be in touch soon for a copy of those papers – and the contract, Rallardes.”
Rallardes left. The group waited silently for a moment, staring around at each other. Clint noted the looks, but nothing was particularly strange.
“What now?” Wanda finally asked.
“We have to gather some more information, then we’ll see that you have control of the bodies after the autopsies,” Dr. Astrades answered. “We’ll need to know who, other than the present group, came into this room in the last two hours and why they came.”
“I doubt anyone but Don,” Amanda said. “He would never let anyone from outside in. Don sorted his pills for him. I think I wonder about that lawyer. He would let someone in he was doing business with.”
“The lawyer wouldn’t have a motive,” Clint pointed out. “Lawyers don’t do anything without reason. If he had one it will come out in those papers.”
“Someone bought some curare. There will be a record,” Dr. Astrades suggested. “They will have arranged with someone among a very limited group here to obtain it. We can find it, then we find the killer.”
“How long have you been here?” Clint asked George.
“Only since yesterday afternoon. The three o’clock flight from San José. Nature Air.”
“How long were you in San José?” Dr. Astrades asked.
“Three days,” Amanda answered.
“Then I can find it faster and much easier than if it were obtained here locally,” Dr. Astrades replied. They all looked a bit nervous, but not particularly so. “He took regular injections and they probably were administered by one of you. Who?”
“Don,” Trudy said. “The others didn’t know about it. About how regular it was. They knew he gave an injection now and then.”
“Yes. I found disposable syringes and several phials of morphine,” Astrades said. “I suppose the curare was in a syringe or in the new phial.”
“I suppose someone in our nutty little group should be getting a bit scared about now,” Amanda said happily. “Who will it be? I don’t think Wanda ... or George ... or me?
“Whatever, let’s get what you need done so we can get some sleep. Maybe Don will keep me awake a bit, but that old tyrant kicking off will probably make me sleep better. The tension is a hell of a lot less.
“Doctor, when you find who, give me time to see how I can get a good defense for knocking off Papa. I don’t think Don will make them any points. He didn’t deserve this.”
“It makes me wonder why he’s dead,” George agreed. “The old bastard, almost expected. Don? WHY, damnit?!”
“Maybe he knew something?” Wanda asked. “Like who bought some curare in San José?”
“Then it would be for ... nothing,” Amanda said. “The doctor will know who pretty fast. Don will be hard to forgive.”
“Oye! What’s this crap, now?” Dr. Astrades asked, checking over Lawrence’s body. “What was he taking?”
Clint went over. Dr. Astrades was holding up one of Lawrences hands. Astrades pointed to the fingernails and said he was on some kind of chemotherapy program. It made the nails get those little ridges and discolorations. It was also an explanation of the baldness. Everyone looked at everyone else. They all seemed to be confused by that information. They knew he was taking a lot of pills, but he told them they were mostly vitamins for his nerves and a skin condition. Don had a long box with numbered chambers that he gave him every couple of hours or once a day or whatever according to the bin number.
“Has he always been such a mean overbearing obnoxious tyrant as he seemed earlier?” Clint asked of George.
Wanda answered, “Well, yes. He was getting worse and worse for the past couple of months, but not really so much anyone would notice. He was always a vicious person. That part’s nothing recent!”
“He was always nasty, but started getting worse when Mom died sixteen years ago,” Amanda explained. “She managed to keep him from being too terrible. I remember him being fun at times when I was little. He was getting a lot more controlling for about four years before Mom died.”
“What did your mother die of?” Serg asked.
“Moms? Why?” George asked.
“Because one or all of you might blame him for her death,” Clint answered.
“In a way, I guess we did,” Amanda replied. “He drove her to nervous exhaustion. The tension was more and more. She died of heart failure. Infarction and extreme arhythm.”
“Let’s say we were all aware he added to the problem and she died before her time because of what he put her through,” Wanda added. “He didn’t do much directly to her, but how he treated all of us made her crazy at times.”
“I have to get in contact with his doctor in the US,” Dr. Astrades stated. “All the signs are there that he suffered a deteriorating cancer problem. His general condition seems very bad.
“Well, I can’t do anything more here. You can transport.”
He talked with Serg for a couple of minutes and left after asking Clint to promise to deliver the napkin as soon as he could. Clint shook his head and said he’d as much as forgotten it. It was in a plastic bag in his pocket. He gave it to Astrades.
Half an hour later he and Sergio left.
“The napkin had a heavy dose of an amyl-based heart medicine. It would, with the bit of added morphine, have killed anyone drinking even twenty cc’s in two minutes. It would stop the heart completely,” Dr. Astrades informed Clint and Serg at seven thirty in the morning.
“The curare? Costa Rica? Too soon?” Clint asked.
“No help. That took about ten minutes. None unaccounted-for in Costa Rica,” he answered. “Of course, there are people who grow the stuff there, but none of that bunch would be able to get any in that short a time without having previous arrangements. They’ve never contacted anyone in Costa Rica – or here, for that matter – before this trip. It was part of a tour the old man booked and was handled by the agent in Switzerland. I talked to the agent and to his lawyer, Sven Orison, on the web. From what I’ve found so far he would have died within two months from cancer of the kidneys that was spreading to the lungs. He was on chemotherapy that had run its course and was not successful in more than slowing the progress of the cancer. He was taking a lot of powerful painkillers that were not totally successful in stopping the pain.
“I have arranged to discuss the case with his doctor in Switzerland over the net. He is very nervous about it. I think he’s just a rich man’s quack and was trying some experimental cure or other and went to standard chemo after he found it wasn’t working. That could well result in a lawsuit for withholding an approved medication until the disease had progressed to an incurable state.
“It will take a day to find where they got the curare here. Costa Rica is easy for stuff bought on the spur of the moment. Panamá is not.”
They chatted for a few minutes, then Clint headed for Rallardes office. He had suddenly been called to Panamá City last evening and was gone, according to the note on the door.
The plane left at eight-thirty. Clint sighed and said they could stop it. This was a lawyers’ trick to delay things. He would take the legal papers to Panamá City where he would conveniently forget to bring them back when he returned, making it necessary to contact the head of the firm in Pana
má City to send them on the plane. The head of the firm would demand a writ before any information could be obtained from their offices. They had established a solid reputation to protect, blah, blah, blah.
“So. There’s probably nothing at all in those papers. He told us too much already. It’s not worth the headaches.”
“Uh-uh. And the next case will put them into a precedent state with you so you go through six more silly delays for something you need. I think those papers will tell me something important. It’s possible – if unlikely – that there’ll be a specific name mentioned.
“I want to know if Donald was a bit more aggressive at kissing up than the others. He WAS the one who handled the medications.”
“Ah! So that everyone is cut out except him, maybe?”
“Maybe.”
“Not even a nice try,” Clint greeted Rallardes. “Why do you lawyers always try the same silly routine?”
“Er, Faraday, wasn’t it?” he replied, eyes looking for a way out and finding nothing. “I, ah, have to be in court in Panamá City this afternoon. I will return in two to three days.”
“Oh, what’s the case number?” Serg asked. “I have a friend on legal who can have your time set up a couple of hours. You can be on the next flight.”
“Er.”
“You can just give us the papers and contracts now and catch this plane,” Clint suggested.
“Um. I, uh, that is, don’t know the case number. I’m a witness for, uh, for another attorney in the firm.”
“Then you can call him or her now and tell them your refusal to cooperate with the police in a double homicide has landed you where you will seriously need the services of the firm in your own defense,” Serg stated sharply. “You are being detained for the impeding of an official investigation. You will be held in the local carcel until statements – such as that you are going to Panamá City for another attorney’s case – can be checked.