Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition

by Moulton, CD

  “Which will mean they’ll descend on you like buzzards on a dead racoon,” Clint said. They all giggled. The lawyers would come in on the afternoon flight from Panamá City if the airport was still open.

  “Hi, Clint! Hi, Judi!” Trudy cried from her table at Bongos (where she had planned to have them accidentally meet when she took the lawyer there). “Come on and join us! This is Bill Joiner from the states. He’s a dual citizen with Panamá. I know how that works because I’m a dual citizen with the US and Switzerland. He’s a lawyer my father’s doctor and lawyer sent here to talk about all that corporation stuff you told me about.

  “I should wait with all that kind of stuff until I get back to the states, shouldn’t I?” She batted her eyes innocently.

  “Uh, the businesses are right here in Panamá,” Joiner protested. “We have to make all the legal papers here.”

  “Oh, darn!” She pouted.

  “You can’t do anything except freeze everything until the murder of your husband is solved,” Judi said like she was explaining to a three year old. “You don’t know if you’re making a deal with the very ones who killed him, otherwise.”

  “But Mr. Joiner wasn’t even HERE!”

  “Mr. Joiner simply records the deal and makes up the legal papers and such things,” Clint said condescendingly. “The deals are made with the corporations. That’s why we had you make your legal claims on the corporations. These things are too often corrupt schemes in Panamá. The laws are different here than back in the states and in Switzerland.”

  “Oh. I see. I guess.

  “Isn’t the fish really GOOD here? Gisela said it was good and I tried it and it really IS!”

  “The lobster, too,” Judi said. “Oh, hell! I’ll be SO glad when they can get some Balboa in! That’s the only thing the storm did that gets me pissed!”

  “We’re just on our way to The Lemon Grass for some Thai food,” Clint said. “Don’t make any agreements with anyone now. It has to wait.”

  “Okay. I already promised Manny I wouldn’t. He said to listen to whatever and he would have his own lawyers advise me – and they wouldn’t even charge me anything for it! Can you believe that?! A LAWYER who doesn’t charge for something!? Like, Wow!”

  Joiner looked like he could bite through twenty penny nails, but was trying to stay cordial. He wished them a good night. When they talked with Gisela a minute and were going down the steps they heard Trudy saying, “But I PROMISED Manny and then Clint that I WOULDN’T so I WON’T EVER! If you make a PROMISE it’s a PROMISE and your word is ALL you have in life that defines YOU! My mother always said that to me and my sister, Wanda.”

  They giggled. They hoped she didn’t overdo it too far.

  The Lemon Grass had some excellent curried pork and rice. They had a good meal and were enjoying a glass of wine when Trudy came in to sit at the table and break into giggles.

  “Joiner could strangle me with the greatest glee!” she finally said. “He was warned that Wanda was stupid as a stump, but didn’t know it’s apparently a family trait. I never got one thing he was saying right! Gracie Allen lives!

  “All the while he had to act like he was having a good time with such an intelligent and beautiful girl.”

  She giggled again.

  “I like doing that to most lawyers,” Judi said. “Frustrate the holy living hell out of them!”

  “I just hope I didn’t overdo it. I was having such fun I got in deeper and deeper. He was looking at me in a funny way, so I said I haven’t been this drunk in years! Her must think I’m an idiot! That seemed to explain it to him. The bimbo is more bimbo-y when she’s had a few too many.”

  “I think Orison and Rasmussen will decide they have to come here,” Clint said. “They’ll know you were putting him on.”

  “So why come here?” Judi asked. “Won’t they think they’ve been had and had better leave it for awhile?”

  “They’ll have to know if maybe we know some of the things we DO know. They’ll have to know WHY the act.”

  Judi and Trudy nodded at that. Clint did wonder why some of this was happening. It seemed extreme.

  Why the hurry? Wouldn’t people normally wait awhile after a normal death, much less a murder?

  “Clint? Manolo here,” greeted Clint when he got up in the morning and was having coffee on the deck. “Got a bit of a flash for you.”

  “Yo?”

  “Orison went with a local girl – paid – last night, got a bit drunk and turned on with a bit of local pot and ran his mouth before he got mugged on his way home. Rasmussen is at the clinic now trying to find out what happened to something or other. It’s missing.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I know Rita, the girl, and she said he was bragging he had made ten million dollars today. He had some kind of medallion or something. Maybe that’s what Rasmussen is so worked up about.”

  “What significance? Got any ideas?”

  “She said he had a thing on a chain around his neck. Something like a gold coin with a horse on one side and a trophy of some kind on the other. She doesn’t know if it was a locket or just a solid coin.”

  “And they were into fixing races. It may mean nothing or it may mean one hell of a lot. Thanks, Manolo. I can maybe use it in some way. I’ll have to go slow and fish for a clue or two.”

  They chatted, then Clint called Sergio to have him find what was claimed as missing in the police report when they reported the mugging.

  Judi waved at him from her deck. He waved back and headed into town to see if he could “accidentally” run into Joiner somewhere. He wanted to know if maybe Joiner knew anything about the mugging.

  Joiner was having breakfast on the porch at the Laguna Hotel. Clint waved and got a wave in return, along with a quick sour look. Friend Joiner did NOT want to see him this morning.

  He went over to say he’d talked with Trudy last night and she was, for her, disgustingly drunk. What had she been drinking? Tequila? Or was that after she left him.

  “She wasn’t exactly drunk when she left, but she was a long way from cold sober,” Joiner said.

  “She starts out sounding normal, but gets to be a real pain in the ass when she’s had a few. She usually gets downright silly and can’t connect anything you say to anything you mean. You want to smack her.

  “She’s really decent enough sort when she’s sober. If I’d known about you I would’ve warned you to tell her you don’t believe in drinking more than a glass of wine with dinner. She’ll usually go along with that.

  “Night turned into a disaster, huh?”

  Joiner shook his head and got a little chummier. “I was fairly sure she was putting me on, but she wouldn’t go that far if she was thinking. She’s the type who lets her mind turn off when she’s been drinking, I guess.”

  “There’s a reason for it. She did it to ... forget some things since she was a little girl.”

  “Yes. Dr. Rasmussen says he thinks she was probably sexually abused by someone when she was eight or nine.”

  Oh? What happened to the confidentiality that Rasmussen was so strong on? And that wasn’t Trudy anyhow.

  “He told you that before you came here?”

  “No, of course not. I called him last night and he said he’d heard she could get a bit radical in some ways when she was drinking, which was why he should have warned me not to let her drink much. He said it was usually that she would get to hating men and blaming her father for being such a tyrant, but she had done some silly and stupid things before. Once.

  “Maybe the murder of her husband has her a lot closer to the edge now.”

  “It’s a bad time to bring up this business crap. You’d think that Rasmussen, of all people, would know that. Maybe you’ve done her one hell of a favor in a way. Maybe this will be therapeutic and let her release some of her tension.”

  He looked a bit surprised, thought, and said, “You know, I hope you’re right! She did seem unstable and to be very badly confus
ed. Maybe that’s why she didn’t seem to ever ... connect with anything.”

  Clint nodded. They’d dodged a bullet there! She had overdone it, but it was all explained.

  And Joiner had called Rasmussen. That might lead to some very interesting reactions in very interesting places!

  “There was no gold medallion mentioned in the police report,” Sergio said. “He said he lost some jewelry and his watch and a diamond ring plus some gold chains and a hundred twenty in cash. I asked that they watch the usual crowd to see if a gold medallion with a horse on it showed up.

  “What do we do if we find it?”

  “Offer them ten bucks for it. Say it’s only gold-plated and isn’t worth very much except for sentimental value or something.”

  “We have ... maybe you should call Manolo.”

  Clint thought, then said he would probably be able to get it faster and cheaper than the police. They wouldn’t have to make a deal where the thugs got away Scot free. He called Manolo, who said he’d have it in an hour or less. He’d heard about the mugging and knew who it had to be. He’d scare them with it into maybe knocking off the muggings for a time.

  After an hour Manolo called to say they had found something in the medallion that they wanted a thousand to hand over.

  “Tell them a hundred bucks and they won’t end up on the wrong end of a very violent mugging themselves,” Clint suggested wryly. “That’s what they’re used to. Any idea what they found?”

  “I think a key and a location. Something on that order. You realize if you make the threat you have to follow through if they don’t come across?”

  “Oh, yeah. Tell them it’s the key to a place where he meets a girlfriend he doesn’t care for his wife to know about.”

  “They know he pays whores.”

  “But they don’t know if he wants both his wife and girlfriend to not know that?” Clint said. Manolo said it was worth a try.

  Clint sighed and headed for the Hotel Bocas del Toro for a bit to eat, then he’d wander around until he got the word that the key was in hand. He didn’t have a clue as to what it was about, but if Orison and Rasmussen were so concerned it had to be something.

  “It came down to me shrugging and telling Jaime that he could expect to be spending time in the hospital. The person he took the crap from is in with the Russian mafia, a group not known to be tolerant of anybody messing with their turf. They own the clinic Orison runs.

  “There’s a big Polish guy we use sometimes who was in Panamá so he came over and I was seen talking with him. I acted like I had ‘the problem’ in hand where they could hear. I said I’d let him know if negotiations fell through. He said I have until four. He has to get back to Panamá. It was all in English, but they speak English. He put on a Ruskie accent for me. I’m going to tell Jaime he has less than three hours to get that medallion and ALL it’s contents to me or I won’t be responsible. I’ll give him ten bucks for his trouble and that’s IT!”

  “Think it’ll work?”

  “If you ever saw Mikail you wouldn’t bother asking.” They chatted a minute, then Clint said he’d come down to San Blas again if it was necessary. Manolo said he’d put the thing in a box and send it Air Panamá.

  Clint went to his house.

  “The medallion and all its contents are on their way,” Manolo reported. “I gave Jaime ten bucks for his trouble and told him if he ever messes with another stooge of the Ruskies I won’t get him out of it.

  “The location is in Santiago. I think it’s a safe deposit box. I sent it to your name and passport number through Air Panamá. You can pick it up at the airport there. I assumed you’ll want to go to try the key somewhere there yourself.”

  “What location in Santiago?”

  “That’s the rub. The location is simply HBDT Santiago. There’s nothing else.”

  “I can find it. I think I know where it is. I stayed at the Bocas del Toro Hotel several times and they have safe a few deposit boxes. I’ll have to take the bus to David and change to Santiago there. I can be there by midnight if the buses are getting through now. They were stopped for a couple of days because the storm took out the road. I have to hurry.

  “Thanks, Manolo. I know this isn’t in your job specs, but it’s a great help.

  “Oh! Marko had a man get pictures of all the art in a few of those people’s houses. Name’s Yuli. He knows you and will get you the disk with the pics. He said there’s some jewelry that’s much too expensive to be there, too. He thinks you plan to use it to put pressure on them to supply your friends a little more dependably. Marko told him the supply was getting to be a bit too sporadic when somebody offered more for the product than they agreed on. They DID have an agreement and they intend to see it followed to the letter.

  “Nothing at Knowles place of interest to you. He said there wasn’t anything at that place that was beyond his budget.”

  “Thanks! Know who else he got pics from?”

  “He’s in solid with the Colombian crowd and was in Medellin until yesterday. He’s on the wrong end from our perspective, but Marko has influence with them. He’s more than willing to work both ends. He has a guarantee that no one will ever know he was involved in any way so make it look like you got the info elsewhere. You know how to work that.”

  “Done! Thanks again!” Clint hung up and grabbed a bag to pack for a short trip to Santiago.

  He was damned curious to know what was in that box!

  Depressing Weather

  It was raining in Bocas, in David, in everywhere in between and now in Santiago. Bummer!

  Clint went to the Air Panamá offices where he showed his ID and got the little package. The medallion was more a locket and held a key and a slip with the HBTD – Santiago note inside.

  He put on his favorite disguise and carried the phony ID for it. He would be recognized as maybe an older relative. His Hanrady disguise.

  His next stop was the Hotel Bocas del Toro where he said he was to get the things from the safe deposit box that Dr. Rasmussen had. They said there was nothing from any Rasmussen there. He said it must be in the name of Orison. They said he had to have the key, which he presented. They brought him a one foot by one foot by eighteen inch steel lockbox. He opened it to find a package wrapped in brown paper. He took it and handed the key to the clerk. He was thinking about staying the night in Santiago, then thought better of it and headed for David and the home of Dave in Quiteno. He wouldn’t open the package until he was there.

  Dave was in the mountains and wouldn’t be back for a week or more because he would go to Bocas for a few days before bringing plants to establish around the place. There was food and beer in the fridge. Clint took a shower and warmed up some chicken soup, then put the package on the table.

  There was a thin steel box inside. He didn’t have a key for it. The hinges were outside, so he drove the pins out and lifted the lid. There was an envelope, a DVD and packages of fifty hundred dollar bills each. He counted the packages of bills and found there was a little less than seven hundred fifty thousand dollars there.

  He checked over the bills. They were good. He knew what to look for on the counterfeit bills from Colombia. The envelope was a letter from “F. L.” in California who said he/she was sending a package by the normal route that was to be handled in the normal manner. There was a CD included that could be kept in Panamá as insurance to be sure the packages would continue yearly.

  Who the hell was F. L.?

  He turned on the desk comp, booted up and inserted the DVD. It was almost a documentary of how horse races were fixed starring Donald and Lawrence Lesley, Frank Lindsay and the lovely Frieda Helmut. There were others who looked a bit shady, one they called “Buster” who was obviously the contact man. Landsay seemed to be talking with Helmut quite a bit when the thing was made. The rest of the family was in the background at times, but didn’t seem to have any active role in what was going down. Even Helmut and Lindsay seemed mostly to just be hanging around. They would
be asked questions they made a point of not quite understanding and the answers were sometimes so muted that the words couldn’t be made out. Lawrence, Donald and the rest of the clan were celebrating but Lindsay was never there at those times. Frieda always seemed to just be the cook or whatever.

  There was a very short bit where Lindsay and Helmut were at a party with none of the other major players being there. It was some kind of anniversary or something. Why was that in there?

  Because F. L. was Frieda Lindsay, stupid!

  Why hide the fact they were married? Why avoid each other at work so deliberately? So no one would know they were the...?

  Ah! They were married as a strictly business arrangement, maybe? That would put either or both of them as the top dog. He was afraid this was going to happen! A murder or two that ended up with a lot of stupid tangents! Helmut/Lindsay did not kill Lawrence and Donald.

  Directly? Maybe THEY hired someone?

  No. No one but that family were in his room to commit the murders. Back to square one.

  Well, square two or three, but not very far into the game. Maybe he should go up into the mountains with Dave and research orchids until this one blew over.

  Like it would ever blow over.

  What a mood! He got an evil smirk on his face and called the airline to book a flight back to Bocas the next morning. Then he sacked out for a few hours, dressed and went into David and to Las Brasas Restaurante for a very good filet mignon and a couple of Balboas. He was on his way to the Condor bar when he got a call from Manny. It seemed that friends Orison and Rasmussen were in some kind of a panic because someone had used the lost key to steal the contents of a safe deposit box in Santiago!

  “How much was in it?” Manny asked.

  “About seven and a half hundred mil.”