Clint Faraday Mysteries Collection B :This Job is Murder Collector's Edition

by Moulton, CD

  “I have relatives in Ontario. I can go there. Or Sydney.”

  “Sidney might be safe enough. It’s become your problem.”

  “I have to make some kind of arrangement to move the, er, funds.”

  “In an account that woman and probably a few friends are watching? Really? That would be smart!”

  “Let it sit there a month or so, huh?”

  “Maybe two years. There’s no way I can get them all.”

  “I think I should make it plain that the money will be totally out of, er, anyone else’s reach if anything happens to me, don’t you?”

  “I suppose.”

  Goins looked entirely defeated. Clint studied him a little as he got another cold beer from the ‘fridge. He smirked to himself walked out on the balcony to drink the beer, then went in to say he had to make a few calls, then he’d probably go back to Cusapín. He used the bathroom, looked at the things there and decided, seeing there were witches and such involved, he would take something for them. He knew there was some, maybe not much, but some, truth to psychic powers.

  “You’re pretty good! – but not as good as you think you are!” he mumbled as he walked toward the bus.

  There was still something missing. He changed directions and looked for Vargas’s office. He went in and said he had to speak with her briefly. He waited ten minutes until an Indio woman left. A woman in the traditional colors of the Cuna Yala. The secretary said for Clint to go in.

  Elena Vargas was a mostly-Indio woman. That explained the poison when added to that Cuna Yala leaving.

  “I just stopped to ask if the witch woman near the comarca is in this – or just you?

  “Which comarca? Where?” She didn’t turn a hair that Clint knew a lot about the deal. He was probably noted from the start. Maybe she thought she was using him, too.

  “Cusapín,” Clint replied.

  “Olafia? We talk now and then.”

  Clint nodded and left without further comment. He went to the bus. Obilio, a friend who helped him in the past was there so Clint asked that he keep an eye on Goins. Notice particularly when he went to the bank or when he pretended to leave. See if he could find where he went.

  “Should I stop it when anyone wants to kill him?”

  Clint thought a moment. “Only if you don’t get hurt doing it.”

  He caught a bus to David. He wondered if Vargas or Goins would be alive in two days.

  Strike Two!

  Clint called Judi when he was in David at the Pension Costa Rica. She had a few little things that helped – such as that there was some black witch-woman involved somehow. Her name came up twice. Olafia Smith. Judi knew exactly how to not let a person know she even heard something they said. Rolando, a local semi-thug, had said something about her. Luela had said her boss, a local black woman who was a sort of witch herself, had let it slip that something was supposed to be done to protect someone else who she didn’t like, but was getting scared of. Olafia Something. She had made Wiliam and Jorge go back to Colon.

  Clint had it all, he thought. It was a matter of four sets of schemes backfiring against themselves. The first set was what had happened in Cusapín and in that area. Now this mess Goins was trying to use to manipulate Clint into getting rid of Elena for him. That was ... damn it! It could be just one or two working together!

  But Clint had enough with this to finish it, he was sure. “Strike two!” he said aloud.

  Obilio called. Goins was going to Panamá City. He went to the bank and got a long readout and signature on an account ledger. He managed to be waiting for the consultant on the seat by the office door and heard it all. Goins and the bank manager both spoke English – but, as they did NOT know, so did Obilio.

  “They will transfer almost a million dollars to an account in the Banco Global. It will cost Goins more than nine hundred dollars.”

  “Thanks, Obilio. That tells me a lot.”

  Clint went to a good meal at Las Brasas and then went to Bohmfalk’s. They had the bar and restaurant in Bocas Town when Clint first went there. They sold that place and had just opened the bar and restaurant in David. He then went to Peter’s at the Hotel Iris and chatted with friends. He turned in about ten thirty.

  He caught a very early bus in the morning to Chiriqui Gande. He managed to leave the Costa Rica by the back entrance where no one who was watching the place would know. It probably wasn’t necessary, but he wouldn’t take any chances. It was about 6:45 when he got to Chiriqui Grande.

  Clint went to the police station to talk seriously with Oliveros. He knew he would have the morning shift because it was early when Moises called them about Valdez and company and he came. He knew who the witch woman was and warned Clint that she had a reputation for using poisons that they couldn’t trace or prove. He suspected strongly that she was behind the deaths of Valdez and Zacharia.

  “I think maybe she’s behind a lot of things. All I have to know is who else is involved with her. It’s one of two people,” Clint explained. “I have to talk to her. I may have enough information that I can get her to slip up. I only need to know a few things.

  “I don’t think she was directly involved in the poisoning of the Littletons. I have to know definitely. She might have made the suggestion that led to that part.”

  Oliveros nodded and wished Clint luck.

  Clint went out to the dock. None of his regular friends were around this morning. He went back into town to a restaurant and asked how he could get to the village where Olafia Smith was staying. He was told there was a road, not very good, but not too bad, from Rambala. He was directed to it. He could probably walk there in less than an hour. Michael, a friend from Changuinola was there and said he’d take him in his truck part of the way, but the road was too bad after the river.

  Clint took him up on that and was taken to where it only took about twenty minutes to walk the rest of the way. He came into the village to find a pretty young black girl waiting for him. She said the witch-woman said she had a vision that he would come.

  Yeah. And I didn’t see that waitress at the restaurant run in to call her when I asked how to find her!

  “She is very powerful. She knows what will happen. It happens many times here. She said to bring Mr. Clint to her house early because she has much work with the spirits of some people who were murdered in the comarca and they want everyone to know she was not the one who sent the death potion to them.

  So she’s covering her ass with the locals. She maybe didn’t send it, but she damned well knows who did.

  Clint walked with the girl to a house that was full of the things mediums and witches always had around. The girl introduced her to a large black woman with dark sunglasses that Clint was surprised she could see through in that darkened house.

  “I know you. I know your soul. You are a man partly good and partly bad. You seek revenge on those who killed the friends of your friend who lives somewhere to the west and near the sea. The people were given a poison that is not from here. It is a poison that none can ever prove. I tell you it was that poison you have suspected by the word of a not ... very wise and loyal ... possibly Indio. Name begins with an `N’ ... or ... no! `M’. Very surely an `M’!

  “I am correct, no?”

  “No. They weren’t friends. Quite the opposite. It’s not revenge I seek, it’s truth. Two of those people were innocent and were brought into this by trickery. I don’t like schemes that bring innocent people into them – and I very damned certainly want justice for them. I want to have the people responsible for that caught and prosecuted. I came here to find just how deeply involved you are. Elena Vargas hinted that you’re very deeply involved.”

  “Elena Vargas is who?”

  “Elena Sanchez Vargas Menendez. In Puerto Armuelles.”

  “The lawyer woman? I spoke with her one time about some maps that were phony. She wanted me to tell some people they were real. That I spoke with the spirits who made them and they are real. She offered me five hundred
dollars.

  “I would not do that. I do many things that are spoken of as evil. I do not like the Indios, but I am black and few black people like Indios.

  “I understand that the culture is the reason. Our cultures do not blend in many places. I do them no harm, though I am accused of anything that goes wrong on the comarca.”

  “No. You aren’t blamed for anything on the comarcas. They have their own witch women who counter any spells or such. They say you do not send spells there. They know it’s cultural conflict. They do say you are much too free with poisons, which is why they suspected you. Moises told them the poison was one that is not available to you. There’s a damned good reason or two no one would believe they used the poison, anyway.

  “I wanted to know if you’re involved. I’ll tell you definitely that you’re in danger. They’re dangerous people. There’s a lot of money involved. That’s a bad situation when people are killed for the money, then someone steals the money from the killer.”

  She studied Clint for a minute, took off the sunglasses and said it was a relief to be able to see for a change.

  “I’m from Jamaica, Mon. This is an act that keeps me free and I can eat regular-like. I make some poisons, but they are only used by my own race. I know there are very evil black people here – more than most other places except Jamaica and Haiti. I do not feel regret that they use those poisons on each other so much, Mon. They aren’t so messy as a machete or Uzzi.

  “I checked with a friend in Santiago on the dead people. Their deaths were ordered by a person in Puerto Armuelles. Maybe the lawyer-woman. Maybe an Englishman. It is one or the other. It may be both, but I think that is not the way it is.”

  “So do I. I only have to know who’s really behind it, then I’ll put an end to it, one way or another.

  “I’m – or was – being used. THAT, I resent, more because they assumed I’m stupid than because they tried to use me.”

  “I do have some very small powers. You will not believe that, but I do. I was always with it from a small child. I can tell much about a person if I have some very personal item.”

  Clint grinned and took a plastic envelope from his pocket. He said it was used by the person in question – or not. If she could read anything from it she would know.

  She nodded and carefully unfolded the envelope to take the razor to touch it to her lips.

  “It is the item from a very, very evil person. A man, not from here. He is the ... is the Englishman in Puerto Armuelles. He plots and plans evil things. He is in fear for his life. He is causing the death of an evil woman now. He feels she has done something ... to kill him. He must be first. She has been the cause of the deaths of others, but from what he did ... or told her ... or something.

  “That is all. He has a very dark soul. He has many fears and wants money for the money. He has much money, but wants more.”

  “Was he the one who caused the deaths of the people here?”

  “... I ...” She touched the razor to her lip again for a few seconds. “This may be not total in correctness, but ... it is mixed. He caused the deaths of ... partners? He is angry and afraid because the first ones ... were not supposed to die, only to ... only to supply money. It is always money with him.

  “The maps! HE made the maps with fire and ... acid? ... or something.”

  Clint nodded. He gave her a twenty dollar bill for a consultation fee. She grinned and touched the bill to her lip. She looked surprised.

  “You are a good man in many ways. You are, how do you say? Outraged that the innocent were harmed. I think I like you. Mon! I don’t meet many people who are honest.”

  “You know something? I think I like you, too! Good fortune!”

  Clint left and headed for Chiriqui Grande. He would have to go to Panamá City. As he had suspected since meeting with Goins, Goins was behind the whole sick mess – but not behind the deaths of the Nesmiths. He would do something to take Vargas’s end of it away. He didn’t know how to tag her for the murders of anyone. He had no proof. What a witch said didn’t hold one gram of weight in court.

  He went on to Bocas Town, got fresh clothes, checked everything at his house there and spent an hour over dinner with Judi, Dave and Ben. He told them more-or-less what he’d learned. He was just getting on the water taxi to go to the bus in Almirante when his phone buzzed. It was Obilio.

  “Clint? We just got word that Mr. Goins caught the bus for Panamá City in David and was dead in his seat when they arrived at Santiago. No one knows why he died.”

  “How long ago?” Clint asked.

  “I had the call from Jorge just five minutes ago.”

  Clint talked a couple of minutes and decided the only difference was that he would go to Puerto Armuelles. He told Obilio to see if Goins ate or drank anything on the bus.

  So. Sweet little Elena managed to get some of the poison to him. How? Was he so stupid he took something from his apartment to snack on during the ride?

  Obilio called and said he bought a soda from a girl when he got on the bus. She stood by the door to the bus selling sodas and galetas.

  “In a box or lata?” Clint asked.

  “Box. It has a straw.”

  That didn’t make much sense, but Clint let it pass. Obilio would have an obvious answer.

  What the hell! “Why does a straw make a difference?”

  “With the straw, it’s sealed if the bus hits a desnivel. A lata is open and will spill.”

  Like he thought. Obvious.

  So. She injected the drink the same way the drinks for Valdez and Zacharia were injected with the same poison. No doubt there about who was behind that!

  How could he prove anything about Vargas? That was going to be one hell of a problem.

  Strike Three and You’re Out!

  Clint thought about how he would handle this mess. He didn’t want Vargas to get away with anything in this. She was the one who had the Nesmiths killed.

  Clint got off the bus in David and went to the Costa Rica. Lee had assumed he would be back because of the way he left so he went to the same room. He went to La Tipica, which is open 24 hours, and got some shrimp apanada. Delicious. He then went back to the Costa Rica and to bed. In the morning he went to the bus station and headed for Puerto Armuelles. He stopped in Frontera to talk with some friends there, then went on. When he arrived he called Obilio and had him meet at Yola’s Restauratnt. Clint asked what had happened since the notice that Goins was dead. Obilio said, “Not much. Vargas wasn’t going to her office today. She was laying low somewhere. No one knew where she was. She wouldn’t answer calls.”

  Clint sighed and asked where she lived.

  “The big house on the paved road out onto the peninsula. The white one with bricks. She isn’t there. Her car is gone.”

  Clint wrinkled his forehead. “Where was she when Goins left. Her office?”

  “No. She had that Indio woman to her office with a girl. They told the girl to deliver something to David at the bus terminal and to wait on the right bus or for someone to come there or something. I wasn’t close enough to hear much. They went out and she took the car and no one saw her since. Goins left about half an hour later. He went to the bank I told you about, then went somewhere in a taxi. I didn’t follow because there was no taxi close.”

  “Do you know which taxi?”

  “Yes. I wrote the number.” He took a slip of paper torn from something from his pocket and handed it to Clint.

  Clint talked another couple of minutes, then Obilio left to go to work. Clint stayed in Yola’s Restaurant. All the local taxis came by there all the time. Clint saw the taxi he wanted and asked where he had taken the Englishman.

  “That Goins person? Just to Emilio’s. By the Alba Road.”

  Clint thanked him.

  Where was the car? It would have to be close. He walked around a bit, then took a taxi to drive out the Alba Road for a short distance. The Mitsubishi was under some trees a few blocks out. Clint had the taxi wait
and went to the car. She was behind the wheel with a bullet hole between her eyes.

  So. Strike three and you’re out! Everybody managed to kill off everybody else. Now and then things work out pretty well! He wouldn’t have to worry about Vargas getting away with anything. He called the police and explained enough about what had happened for them to be able to close the case as a revenge killing by a person who was now also dead.

  Clint headed for David and the bus to Bocas. He would like to be able to relax for a few days. Maxie, the loan officer for the Banco Nacional de Panamá called to him when he passed and asked what was to be done with his money. The transfer was cancelled when Mr. Goins died and there were instructions that any and all funds held by Mr. Goins were to be inherited by Clint if anything happened to him within thirty days. It was more than eight hundred fifty five thousand dollars altogether.

  Clint groaned and said he would come back next week and they could transfer it to the new hospital fund. Maxie almost fainted. He said they could build the whole hospital for that!

  “Then that’s what we’ll do!” Clint agreed.

  He went on and caught the bus.

  Clint walked along the beach with Andres, Moises and Dave. They watched a large cayuca going along the coast and called their “Oye!” call. Things were peaceful. Dave was going along the beach in the morning to take up his classification studies again. They’d discussed the murders as much as they would. It was in the past and didn’t really concern the comarca. Life there would go on as always.

  “We are going to go to the mountain tomorrow evening for the reading of the signs. Would you care to come along?” Moises asked.

  Clint thought about it a few seconds.

  “I’ll pass.”

  Clint Faraday Mystery #9

  Follow the Blood

  © 2011 & 2013 by C. D. Moulton

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to persons, living or dead, or events is purely coincidental unless otherwise stated.