by Moulton, CD
No.
Were they all his patients?
Not at present. They all had been until the past three or four years. John and Lily now lived in other places so had moved their medical attention there.
Had any of them changed radically recently?
A bit of a pause, then, “Not while under my care.”
“Lily has changed?”
“Mostly in personality, not a medical condition unless there was some kind of brain damage. I noted it. She was always rather like her sisters, very sociable and friendly. Even Wilma and Ellen tend to be gregarious when they know people, though they are shy around strangers. She changed to a more ... formal kind of reaction to people. I put it to being in a much bigger city and finding people compete in ways that are foreign to her. She seemed to be more interested in status, if you understand. She’s living and working in Mobile, so there’s a lot of social station mentality there.”
“Yes, I saw that in her. And John?”
“He has nervous problems. I can always tell. It has affected him physically and mentally. He was never nearly so secretive before he moved to Atlanta. Almost paranoid, though his sisters tell me he isn’t that way at home or when they go places. His skin isn’t clear like the others, his eyes aren’t so clear, he’s lost a lot of weight ... all typical for extreme stress cases. It would also explain why he’s not that way in non-stressful situations or among familiar surroundings.
“As this is information outside of the doctor/ patient area, I feel I can tell you. Anyone who has known the family for some years will tell you much the same things – though I’m sure they wouldn’t give you a semi-professional diagnosis of stress-related symptoms.”
“Thanks, doctor. This is very valuable to me. I spotted the symptoms in both of them and wanted to, if possible, eliminate them as being behind the death of their father.”
“Well, Wilma told me that she thinks John has fathered a child and is paying support. That would be a stressful situation, considering the moral bent of Walter ... oh!”
“The murder was definitely not because of a child born out of wedlock. Walter would have ranted and raved, threatened, then simply made very damned certain the father would pay for the child he brought into the world. What they’ve said tells me he was much more flexible with the males.”
“Yes. That’s true. It also gives me a lot of personal relief. I really shouldn’t speak about my patients or former patients as I have. I simply can’t picture any of that family killing anyone, much less their own father!”
“It’s most unfortunate there isn’t any other way to eliminate at least one of them. There was no way it could have been anyone not in that hotel last night and that’s the family and two friends.
“Do you know William Handley?”
“Bill? Yes, he’s a patient. I find him another who would have no motive.”
“Gladys Anne Falsey?”
“Name doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Thanks, Doctor. You’ve helped tremendously with this.”
“It has to be this Gladys person?”
“No. There’s less than no motive there. She’s just a friend of Lily’s who barely ever spoke to Walter.”
“Well, I hope you find that there was a way for someone to do it who wasn’t still in that hotel this morning. That does remain a possibility, you know.”
“Yes. A very small one, but that’s sometimes enough.” Clint agreed. They spoke another minute, then Clint hung up.
So. Who were their doctors in Mobile and Atlanta? It would be information on their tourist visa forms unless they did like so many: wrote “none.”
Clint called Sergio and requested that he get the contact information for Lily and John from the forms. He would call back in ten minutes. He called back when he found that Lily had a paid medical program where she worked now. John hadn’t listed a doctor. That left John, the one who it had to be from the first. Clint said to call them together for a little Nero Wolfe type of session.
“Okay, this will be very brief, I hope,” Clint announced to the group gathered in the room where Walter died. “You will see very quickly why only one of you had the where-with-all and physical attributes to have killed Walter Wycoff.
“First, this was a locked room mystery until I took one look at the room and what was found.
“Note that the doors were deadbolted. There was no way anyone could have closed those locks from outside. That means the entrance and exit were not through those doors.
“Well, the exit.
“Next, the air conditioner wasn’t on. It was fairly cool last night, so Walter was using the fan. That gives us the strong possibility that the window was the point of exit if not entrance. It is, in fact, the only possibility.”
“The windows were also locked,” John pointed out.
“Yes, but they’re self-locking. You close them and they lock. If he had that window (pointing) open just a crack for fresh air with the fan the killer could slip in and out with only a little difficulty. If he closed the window when he exited it would automatically lock.”
Sergio and Doc nodded. They’d noted that as fast as Clint had.
“So the window was the point of access,” Clint continued. “You can now consider that the only one who could enter and exit that window was an Indio boy. A small person. No one in your family or among your friends here is small. Only one person among you could possibly have used that window. He’s tall, but it’s thin that gets you in and out.”
Everyone stared at John. He was thinking as hard as he could, but there wasn’t any refutation. He was the sole person in that room who could have gone out through that window. It would have been tight, but workable.
“Do you have AIDS, John?” Clint asked.
He put his face in his hands and nodded.
“Your father would have one explanation for that. You’re gay. He was going to disinherit you.”
“That wouldn’t matter. I’ll die within two years. You won’t believe this, but I killed him so he wouldn’t have to face what he would think of as the ultimate disgrace.
“I’m not gay. I got it in a fight in a bar. I was cut and the person who cut me had AIDS. He had his blood on the knife. He pulled it and tried to cut me, I turned it and cut him, then he managed to cut me on the arm. That was almost two years ago. I developed the symptoms about six months later and was diagnosed. I’ve been taking the medicines, but they’re failing because of the stress.
“I didn’t mean for him to ever know. I would suffocate him in his sleep – he takes Lorazepam to sleep and wouldn’t wake up.
“He didn’t take it or something. He woke up and had a heart attack. I don’t think he saw me.”
“He stopped taking it months ago because he was getting addicted,” Wilma said. “Johnny, I took one look at the room and said just what Mr. Faraday said. It could only have been you. I didn’t know why.
“You should have told us, Johnny. We could have explained it to Dad.”
“No. You know perfectly well that he wouldn’t listen to the truth. He’d decide it was because I’m queer and nothing would change his mind. You know that, Wil.”
“I guess I do.”
“I have a suggestion, Doc?” Clint asked.
“Yes?” Doc answered.
“You have on the death certificate that he died of a massive coronary under suspicious circumstances. Let’s let it remain that, without final resolution. John will be dead anyhow before the legal crap would be finished. We don’t need the expense and aggravation here of a trial and incarceration. He’s already under death sentence – which they don’t have here in Panamá.”
Doc said he’d go along with it. Sergio shrugged. “I wasn’t able to solve it. I won’t mention that you did.”
“Thank you,” John said. “I don’t deserve it.”
“Johnny,” Lily said. “You did it to spare him the disgrace he’d feel. We all know it would eat him alive and that he wouldn’t see more than one reas
on you have AIDS. Right or wrong, he wouldn’t ever let go of the idea that you’re gay. He’d think it was a curse sent by God on HIM for something or other. You know how he felt about God’s retribution. He’d kill himself slowly with worry that he had offended God somehow.
“I don’t condone it, but I don’t condemn it either. You did what you thought you’d have to do.”
“It never occurred to you that you could just kill yourself somehow and he’d never know?” Arthur asked with a sneer.
“Of course he’d know,” Doc said. “It would be public knowledge. It’s posted on medical records that a person has HIV if he dies, regardless of how. The confidentiality is for the living only. It would be made known so anyone he had relations with could get tested.”
“It’s a bad situation no matter what,” Clint said. “I feel this is best all around.”
“It just doesn’t seem right!” Arthur said.
“It’s the best solution for everyone involved. We sometimes have to select among only bad choices,” Sergio said.
“It wouldn’t be done like that at home!” Arthur insisted.
“We’re not home. They don’t do things here like they do at home!” Bobby said.
“Thank God!” Wilma agreed. The rest nodded agreement.
Clint went home half an hour later. It was too late for fishing today. He hoped the next morning would be as nice as today.
Bah! Humbug!
“Feliz Navidades!” Silvio called from his boat as he passed Clint’s home. Clint was on the deck having his coffee. He waved and returned the greeting to the family of Indios in the boat. They were headed out to the mainland side of Bocas del Drago where Silvio’s father and uncle had a large finca on the peninsula. Judi Lum, his nextdoor neighbor, called them to her dock to hand out little mementos to the children and to present Maria, Silvio’s wife, with a large pineapple upside-down cake. She baked them to present to her good Indio friends on Christmas every year.
Clint went inside to put on his formal Christmas clothes, khaki shorts and a white tee shirt (he always dressed that formally here) with flip-flops. He went to town to talk with Jim and friends a bit.
Jim was a regular at The Golden Grill who met with several friends most days at a table on the end. It was a great place to people-watch, across from the parque. Jim’s been on Bocas 17 years.
“Another Christmas in Bocas!” Jim greeted. “I think it’ll stop raining pretty soon.”
Bob came from the inside. He lived there. He greeted everyone and looked lost. He was a good friend of Doug and Christie, who owned the place, and would bus the tables just for something to do. The Grill wasn’t open on Christmas day. Almost no place was, but they gathered there anyhow. None of them had family here and they shared interests.
Dave came by with three Indios. He was carrying a guitar and said he was going to the big party at Silvio’s father’s place. The Indios invited Clint to go. He was undecided, then declined.
The trouble with the parties of that type was that there were always a few who drank too much, then they would wrestle and, it looked like, fight. It was only a contest among friends, though they would beat each other to bloody pulps. It was a sort of custom. Clint didn’t understand it or like it.
Tim rode up on his bike. Dave said goodbye to the group and walked off, ignoring Tim. He found Tim to be a rude, vulgar blowhard. Tim had the habit of coming into a group when he knew one or two and dominating the conversation. He would as much as ignore the rest of them. Clint had once done as Dave suggested, Googled him, and found most of what Tim bragged about was stuff that never happened.
Tim ignored the greetings from Bob and Clint and spoke directly to Jim. “I had to come in to get some fresh bread, but the panaderia’s closed. Where is there anything today?”
“The China has bread,” Jim answered.
“I like to get the fresh stuff!”
“Well, I’d better go,” Clint said. “See you, Bob, Jim.” He walked off with Tim telling Jim how he always had fresh bread back in Vermont or wherever.
So go the hell back to Vermont!
Sally Benton, a tourist from England, greeted him. He talked a few minutes with her. A gaggle of Indio urchins came by trying to get him to buy some handmade bracelets or trinkets. He didn’t buy anything, but gave each of them a dime.
He walked on. Two young black kids came and demanded, “Darme un quarter!”
Clint noticed for the umpteenth time how the Indios had something to trade for money or would work for it. The blacks demanded money. He told them to get lost.
Cultural differences. The Indio work ethic. They worked from the time they were eight years old.
He would walk the circle (well, elongated oval) around to sixth street, then back across to the other side of town. The rain wasn’t enough to bother him. He spoke with a number of people and returned to the main drag at Hawaii, a supermarket. He turned and headed back toward Saigon. He was passing through the colorful cemetery where a number of people were visiting to place fresh flowers on the graves when his phone buzzed. Sergio, the violent crimes police captain.
“Yo, Serg! Merry Christmas!”
“Bah! Humbug!” Sergio replied. “It’s not the best time for a murder! I’m the only one here!”
“Murder? Where this time?”
“Solarte. Care to come along?”
Clint sighed. He didn’t have anything else to do so said he’d be at the station in five minutes.
“What do we have?” Clint asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe just one of those family things, but this one is rich so we have to go through the forms,” Sergio replied. “They could have waited a day!”
“Cause of death?”
“I’d say probably cyanide from the description of the body.”
Dr. Astrades, the ME, was along. “I’d like to give cyanide to the one who had to do this on Christmas! One day a year without this kind of shit is too much to ask?”
“Yup! ‘Fraid so!” Clint returned. Doc gave him the finger.
They went around to the back side of the island where there were some very fancy houses. Most of them were owned by gringos, but some, like this one, were wealthy Panamanians. The Indio kids came to the boat to hug Clint. Their parents all greeted with the “Feliz Navidades!” call.
Clint asked them what had happened. They didn’t know. They weren’t welcome at “That place.”
So. The people weren’t liked by the Indios. As amiable as the Indios were normally, that could say quite a lot.
“People are arrogant assholes?” Clint asked Basilio. “Type who are ‘better-than-thou’?”
“Better than God.”
“Just as dead as they’d be if they were trash like us,” Moises said sourly.
Sergio and Doc said they were going on to the house. Clint could come up after he talked with his friends. They knew Clint could get information from the people much easier and faster than they could. The people didn’t like or trust officials of any kind, far too often with damned good reason.
Clint chatted with several people. The kids hated “those super-rich, super-religious, super assholes” in the big fancy super-stupid house.
The house was certainly very much overdone. Verandahs, lower level party patio, brick bar-b-que, wrought-iron tables with glass tops, cupolas, etc. A very fancy steel and concrete fence with spiked tips and razor wire. There was a big fancy 38' boat on a dock that was certainly farther out and longer than the zoning would allow. They’d cut a lot of mangroves along the shore, which was totally illegal.
The kids said they were super-pious types. They went around thumping their Bibles and reciting their rosaries, then bribed officials the next day to go over the law. They treated the locals like serfs. They had more money than the president, but they were all sour and totally miserable in their personal lives. They had nothing but money and money doesn’t love anyone. The locals pitied them because they were so empty inside. They had things, but didn’t h
ave anyone who cared about them, so they had nothing. The Indio philosophy.
Clint went through, noting the layout and overdone everything. Ostentation of this degree was rare. Four, count ‘em, four chapels.
He looked back from the house steps down the hill toward the dock. Looking back, it was a peaceful, beautiful view. The house and crap were dischord.
There was a row of shoes beside the door and a notice that shoes were to be removed before entering the house. Slippers were provided on the shelf inside the door.
Sheesh!
Clint slipped off his flip-flops and went inside where he slipped on slippers from individual plastic bags with the size marked on them. They were laid out very neatly along a shelf to the left inside the door. Another notice stated that the slippers were disposable. Toss them into the canasta under the end of the bench when exiting.
Double sheesh!
“This is HORRIBLE!” Maribel Vasquez cried. “My husband MURDERED in his own home! Oh, WHY did he insist on living out here in the jungle with that bunch of SAVAGES all around who wanted to kill us all because they are so JEALOUS of the nice things we have? Oh, WHY couldn’t we live in Panamá City? WHY did he have to come HERE where these awful pagan savages HATE us because we’re so SUPERIOR to them? Oh, WHY wouldn’t he LISTEN to me and stay in Panamá City where we know so many important people and can trust them? Oh, WHY?!
“We DO know almost everyone important in the government, you know. My uncle is a very well-known representative and my brother and sister are important lawyers. (This in a more normal snobby voice.)
“Oh, WHY?!” (Back to the dramatic crap.)
“Because you couldn’t feel so superior to anyone when you were among your own type,” Clint replied. “Is this group the only ones who were here last night? Was anyone else on the grounds?”
“Just those PAGANS from that dirty village who come no matter what we do! We can’t keep them OUT! They have some way to get past the fence to STEAL everything we have!”
“No one from that village comes here to steal anything from you. They see what you have and what it’s brought you and don’t want any part of it. I take it you here are our only suspects?”