by Moulton, CD
“I have to admit what you say is true,” Sergio said. “We find our hands tied much of the time because of the way this underjudge handles things.”
“We have to find a way to stop this,” Judi said. “I hate to see the way Bocas is headed today. It’ll spread all over the country in a few years and Panamá will go right back to being a banana republic.”
“We’ll do what we can. Change comes slowly here so it might not be enough,” Manny said. “David is still fairly good. It shouldn’t be too badly affected for a few years, but you never know. That stuff follows the money. If gringos move to David the crime will move with them.”
They talked about such things until late, then broke it up and went to their various homes.
Amanda was to go to the states tomorrow.
“She was put in a cell where a psychiatrist was to talk with her in the morning,” Sergio reported. “She said she was obviously crazy. Why bother?
“They don’t know how she got the stuff or how she managed to get it into the cell. Curare. She inserted it with a little piece of wire and was dead in seconds. She left a note addressed to you, Clint. Here’s a fax of it.” He handed Clint a sheet of paper. He went to the light to read it. I HATE having to wear reading glasses.
Well, he thought she might try to suicide. The game was over and there wasn’t anything else she needed to accomplish. Half or better of her life was dedicated to what she’d done since just before her father died.
“Do you think she told you how she did it? Suicided?” Sergio asked. “I’d think she would leave you a clue no one else would see.
“I think it has something to do with the Creamsickle, personally. I just don’t know how she got anyone to bring it to her.”
Clint didn’t know what he was talking about. He hadn’t read the note yet.
He found the glasses and put them on to read in her careful script:
Hi, Clint –
Well, the game’s over. We both won in different ways. I won the “attainment of plan” category and you won the “catch her” category. I’m more than satisfied with that.
I want you to know that I always considered you a very intelligent person. I knew the chances were that you would be able to stop me before I finished what I started out to do. Crazy or not, you have to admit that the world’s a better place with most of them gone. It will be a better place when I’m gone, too, I suppose.
I just got a friend to bring me a Creamsickle. I always have loved them and haven’t seen them much in the past few years. I had some in the ‘Fridge at the ranch and she brought me a couple of them.
Well, this is goodbye. It was a great game. I’m glad we can both claim a victory. I do like and respect you.
Bye! – Amanda
He put the note down and said, “She had it delivered by using her talent to make people like her. Who was the one who brought her the ice cream?”
“Some girl who was raised on the ranch. About twenty five years old. They were friends for a long time,” Sergio answered.
“They also probably shared some things that kept them close,” Clint explained. “Things like the sexual abuse by the owner of the ranch and possibly also by his horse trainer. They bonded a long time ago and the girl might have had hints that Amanda would get even for both of them.
“Let it go.”
“I damned well will!” Sergio exclaimed.
“... so she suicided. It was her way of saying she did exactly what she set out to do and didn’t want to fight the inevitable results of that,” Clint explained to Judi. It was just at nightfall and they were in the Pirate to order a delicious meal. The breeze was light and pleasant so they were on the outer deck.
“She was ... so strange,” Judi said. “You almost had to like her, but I never really trusted her. I saw something that wasn’t quite right.”
“Not quite right? THAT’S an understatement if I ever heard one. She didn’t show me that to any extent. It was later when I looked back when I saw the clues to what she would become. The lack of reaction when her father was killed made me see something wasn’t on line.”
“I wasn’t there for that, but I was there when she was saying how glad she was that the old bastard had bought it. She was also the only one who didn’t seem to even care that Donald was dead. She said she was just a little sad about that.”
“She was furious with him for killing her father before she could do some of the things she did to Frank Lindsay on him.”
They were starting to order when a group went to the long reserved table. There were assorted younger people and a sour-looking older woman who was saying, “I’m almost sorry I brought you on this trip! I give you the only chance you bunch of lazy wastrels will ever have to go anywhere and all you do is whine at me! Well, one more word and I’ll see you cut off! Is that clear?”
“Oh, Mom, put a cork in it!” a younger woman said. “We always end up in a stupid fight anywhere we go. It’s downright embarrassing when you start the shit! You just want to control our lives!”
Clint suddenly stood and said, “Let’s go!”
“What in the world?!” Judy cried.
He stalked out, she followed.
“Clint! What...?”
“Enough already!” he spat back.
Judi didn’t know what was happening.
Of course, she wasn’t there when a like group came in to sit at that table and argue.
Clint Faraday Mysteries # 4
Shortcuts
10 shorts
Collector’s edition
© 2009 by C. D. Moulton
all rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, either electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any other information retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder/publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to persons, living or dead, or events is purely coincidental unless otherwise stated.
Contents
1 Breakfast Call
2 Bah! Humbug!
3 Oye!
4 Dead Wrong
5 Hmm...
6 Exactly!
7 Killer Show
8 Deadly Serious
9 Footnote
10 Doormat
Breakfast Call
Clint Faraday took his coffee out onto the deck of his home near Saigon Bay and waved at Judi Lum, his nextdoor neighbor. She waved back and wagged a finger at him in their regular ritual. He didn’t often bother to wear anything when he first got up in the mornings until he decided what he was going to do.
Judi was a very attractive woman originally from Taiwan. They had been close friends ever since he moved to Panamá. She helped him with his cases at times. He had retired from the PI business in Florida when he moved to Panamá and was now involved with a number of cases here. He worked with the local police on murders of the types they never had before the tourist influx of the past several years. He worked most often with Cpt. Sergio Valdez of the violent crimes division.
Panamanians are generally not violent people. It’s the tourists and residents from other places that tend to get into such situations.
Jorge Sanchez went by in his cayuga. No passengers, so he would be out for lobster today. He waved and called, “Co coin dega!” (It’s a great day!) to Clint and Judi, who returned the greeting.
Clint was learning the local Indio dialect and was teaching them English in return. His Spanish is what he calls, “Practical, not grammatical.” He is conversational, but not grammatically correct.
He would go fishing. It really was a beautiful day. He might even find Jorge and dive for a lobster or two for the freezer.
His cellular buzzed. He debated answering until he read the ID on the screen, then answered, “Yo, Serg-io! Wa-aping?” (Wadi-wadi for “que pasa?”)
“Clint, I hate to call you this early,
but can you come to the Hotel Crawnshaw? There’s been a murder – I think. It looks contrived.”
“Where in hell is the Hotel Crawnshaw?”
“It’s a block or two before Mondo Taitu. One of those big older houses that were converted into what we used to call a rooming house.”
“Oh. Canary-shit yellow place?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Be there in ten.”
“Thanks, Clint.”
“Name’s Walter Wycoff. Holycalm, Missouri. Booked in day before yesterday with a bunch of family and a couple of friends. Have the whole hotel for the entire week,” Sergio explained. “Marilyn Crawnshaw owns the place. He left a breakfast call for six thirty, she knocked on the door and got no answer, tried again, no answer, tried the passkey, but the deadbolt was on, went around to the porch side and tried that door, deadbolted.
“She got Mauricio, the Indio kid there, to go in the window. He had to break a pane to unlock it. This is what he found. All he did was unlock the door, then got out of there. Marilyn didn’t let anyone go in until Doc and I got here.”
Doc is Dr. Astrades, the local ME.
They went into the room. Doc was working over a very large man on the bed. He said the guy was smothered, but there were signs he had a bad heart. That may be the actual cause of death, but the attack was brought on by someone trying to smother him.
“He was smothered in a locked room?” Clint said. “Shades of John Dickson Carr! This one might be weird!
“Who are the suspects?” He was inspecting the room carefully. He noted the heavy deadbolts, the small self-locking windows either side of the door to the porch, the way the bed sat against the wall, the writing desk, the small lamp on the end table was on, the room air-conditioner in the second window, the armoire That the fan was running. Everything. “And is anything changed? Lights, AC, etc.?”
“Anyone here between, say, two thirty and three thirty?” Doc answered. “I can get more exact, but that’ll be when it was done. We didn’t change anything. AC wasn’t on, the fan was.”
“Security gates locked at the time?”
“They’re locked at dark every day,” Marilyn said. “The tenants have a key, but it rings a bell inside my room so I know no one came or went from about nine until we found him.”
Clint took a few minutes to go around the entire property. There was no way anyone could have come in from outside. The place was secure.
He went back in to tell Sergio. “Okay. I have to talk with everyone here. The killer is staying in this hotel.
“How many?”
“Eight, besides him. Two friends and six family. They’re down in the dining room having coffee.”
Clint nodded and went down to the dining area to meet the suspects:
Bobby Wycoff, 28 years, five nine. A hundred eighty pounds, sandy brownish hair a little long, brooding personality.
Wilma Wycoff, 24 years, five six, 140 pounds, same type of sandy brownish hair, a bit too bubbly for Clint’s taste. She was immediately flirting with him.
Lily Wycoff, 22 years, five seven, 140 pounds, same hair, a bit snobbish.
John Wycoff, five eleven, 135 pounds, ditto, skinny computer nerd type.
Ellen Wycoff, 20 years, five ten, 145 pounds, ditto. A bit reserved, but not snobbish.
Arthur Wycoff, 18 years, six feet, 185 pounds, ditto. Sullen teenager at an age he should have outgrown it.
Bill Handley, 42 years, five nine, 180 pounds, somewhat ruddy complexion, dark nutbrown short hair, overly-curious, trying to be “cool,” computer nerd type. Friend of John.
Gladys Anne Fallsy, 25 years, 140 pounds, long bleached-blond hair, subdued, friend of Lily.
The hotel had eight rooms. Everyone except Lily and Gladys had a private room. There was a bath at either end of the hallway. The rooms were on the second floor with the kitchen, laundry and so forth on the bottom floor. Marilyn’s rooms were in front on one side of the entrance with a large lobby/sitting room on the other side.
Clint looked the setup over, went through the neat clean kitchen, then returned to the murder room where Sergio asked if he knew who did it yet. It was meant as a joke, but Clint said it was rather obvious. He only had to try to find the motive.
Sergio didn’t know if he was serious. He was.
“Bobby, I’m Clint Faraday. I assist the police in certain types of crimes. I have to know some background.
“How did you get along with your father?”
“Pretty good most of the time. He could be strict and more than a little obstinate. When he got an idea in his head there wasn’t anything known to man that would change it. It was mostly about morals and that kind of thing so we all know how to stay away from anything that might set him off. He was generous and tight at the same time. He paid for a vacation in a new place every year, but he wouldn’t spend anything over the basic rooms and food.
“None of us are hurting. It was still a pretty cheap vacation for all of us. We all get along Okay. If we invite friends we have to pay for them.
“He was a bit of a stickler about booze and sex. The rule was not much to drink and sex was out if we didn’t keep it a secret from him. He was willing to see and hear no evil – from the men. The women, totally off-limits. Period. Next case. You WILL be a virgin when you marry.”
“He had the heart condition for how long?”
“About four years that we knew about. He had a minor attack then. He knew about it before, but kept it from us.
“Listen, Mr. Faraday. You’re asking me about his heart. We were told he was murdered?”
“He apparently suffered a massive coronary while someone was trying to kill him.”
Bobby shuddered. “I hope you catch whoever did it.”
Clint went upstairs to ask Doc how he knew someone tried to smother Wycoff.
“Because of the slight bruising and the fact there are fibers in his teeth from the tear in the pillow when he bit it.
“No, it couldn’t be because he bit the pillow when he had the heart attack. There would be no bruising on the cheekbones from that.”
Clint thanked him and went downstairs to repeat the introduction to Lily Wycoff. She had much the same to say about her father. She admitted she had a boyfriend and what they did would have had her cut out of the will. He didn’t know – or pretended that he didn’t. He wasn’t stupid by any criteria. She was worried about a scandal from this.
John had much the same things to say about him, though he seemed to resent what he called “The blind condemnation of anyone who didn’t think like he did and the way he held human nature against people.”
Wilma was a little confused by it all. She didn’t have anything to add. Her father was a bit strict, but not as much as people seemed to think. He just overstressed his ideas at times. Not really very often.
Bill Handley hadn’t known him except in passing when he was at the house. He seemed a very nice person and had a good mind except for the religion bit. He could get tiresome with his pious moral tirades if a public official got caught philandering – which they tended to do far too often anymore. All the outrage in the world wouldn’t change them one millimeter.
Gladys Anne had much the same story as Bill. She didn’t know him well. He seemed mostly very nice, but she wasn’t into the “Jesus” bit so more-or-less avoided him in any situation where it might come up. Ellen Wycoff, same story.
Arthur Wycoff, resented his father for being such a total prude, but appreciated what he’d done for him.
None of them had anything particularly negative to say about any of the others. Lily was a little uppity at times. John had a secret. Maybe he’d knocked a girl up or something and didn’t want anyone to know. He spent a lot of money they thought might be child support, but he made plenty so it wasn’t a real problem. Ellen had the wrong kind of boyfriend. They had to agree with Dad there. He was a motorcycle bum and up to no good. Wilma had a slight memory problem. Arthur was a pain in the ass with his morose outlook. It w
as all petty and typical of that kind of family. Clint did have one place to look.
He made a few short notes on his pad, then went back upstairs where the body had been removed and Sergio was just finishing his CSI report.
“Find your motive?” Sergio asked.
“I might have. I have to check something out.”
“What’s it about?”
“Religion, mostly. Seems he was a borderline fanatic in some things. Somebody stepped over the line. They all said he would cut the girls off, disinherit them, basically, if they had sex before they were married.”
“Oh? One of them stepped over that line?”
“All of them did, probably. He would pretend he didn’t know it. That’s what I meant about borderline fanatic. He was also fairly pragmatic. I think what he wanted to prevent was pregnancy or something that would cause a scandal.”
“So you have to find which of them is pregnant. I see.”
“None of them are pregnant.”
Sergio paused, then said, “That type would go totally ape-shit if one of the girls had a lesbian affair? Totally homophobic?”
“Very definitely.”
“And Lily even brought her girlfriend along on this vacation. I see.”
“Nope! I’ll have to check on a couple of things, then we can finish this. The weather won’t hold for long and I want to get in some fishing and diving. See you in a few.”
Sergio gave him the finger and grinned.
Holycalm, Missouri. Not large, on the river, place where everyone knew everyone. Small clinic in Perryville where everyone went for any medical problems. Doctor knew everyone. Clint spoke with him and he said he wasn’t about to give out any information about his clients. Clint told him Walter had been murdered and that the information might catch the killer. It wasn’t anything anyone would care about being known, it was about if any of them – he wouldn’t ask which – was on any special medications.