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

by Moulton, CD

  Were Samuel and Bart Green related?

  Not according to what he could find. Green was certainly not an uncommon name.

  SfTSpec. Where did the name come from?

  He checked over the list. Stedmann, Stenson. Smart.

  F? Not capitalized? A first name? Frank? There was a Donald Fieldman.

  T? Truman?

  If it was Stenson or Smart and Frank Carlysle – NOT a member. It most probably wasn’t him. That left only Fieldman. If it was Smart or Stenson, Fieldman, and Truman, two of them were dead.

  Was Fieldman dead?

  That would take some checking.

  Clint worked until five thirty, then he and Judi went out for a relaxing night on the town.

  1+1 = 9

  “Well, Serg, it seems your one and one is two is now one and one is six – and growing!”

  “I have traced a few things about Stedmann. There is not much of a trail. He is in the company with the others here. He has been involved with another person, this Faith Richards, in another business deal, earlier, with a man called Donald Fieldman. It was about some kind of stock exchange or something and in the mid-nineties.

  “There are a lot of almost-dead ends in this one.”

  “Tell me about it!”

  “I just did.”

  Clint gave him the finger. They chatted a bit more, but there wasn’t much new. Clint wanted to know something about Fieldman, but simply couldn’t find much. The name had pages on Google etc, but nothing that would make a positive connection with the one he was looking for.

  That’s the trouble with such search engines. You can usually find hundreds, even thousands of references to a certain person or thing, but simply knowing the name you want isn’t enough to concentrate the search.

  Clint narrowed it a bit by limiting the search to Texas. There were only fifty six pages on Donald Fieldman Texas. Clint followed twenty or so reference hyperlinks and learned virtually nothing more.

  Sergio called and said he’d found a little bit. Markus J. Stedmann from Texas had connections on the web with a Susan and Kyle Long and a Faith Newsom, who was now Faith Richards. He was going to check on the Longs. They were in the company.

  Clint agreed and went back to the computer to look for Susan and Kyle Long.

  Uh-oh! Deceased in a fire that had trapped them in their home in Carmel, California, in 2004. It was determined the fire was “probably” arson, but was done so cleverly that it was not provable. One and one now equaled eight. Were there more?

  Probably. This was one sick bunch of people.

  Well, now it could be pieced together in an odd sort of way. Maybe one eighty degrees wrong, but something to investigate.

  Faith Newsom had business dealing with Mark Stedmann. Was that the start? Maybe they were working together ever since, which meant they would probably have been together before.

  Then why wasn’t Newsom part of the company name? Did the company name have anything or nothing to do with people’s names?

  Assume the company was named for the ones who started it. The purpose of the company was first ... this part would depend on who the starters were. Stenson, Smart, Truman were dead. Was that because they started the group and it got away from them?

  If it was Stedmann, it still got away from Truman, so until he knew who “f” was he didn’t have much. If it was Fieldman he had to know something about him. That was the really hard part.

  Past that. Get your mind into order and let the tangents go until you have something to use to investigate. The company was a survivor’s club that made them kill each other off ... this wasn’t making sense! If that was the deal, why travel together? Was it even sicker than he dared guess?

  Clint got in his boat and went to Almirante and to the police station to talk with Sergio.

  “Serg, can you tag Stedmann and leave the others out of it?”

  “I think so. Why?”

  “Because this is one chilling sick mess! I can’t figure it but one way and that is so sick ... I wonder if Stedmann’ll give himself up to protect the others to kill off each other? I wonder if part of it’s that if you got caught you’re out and the others must be kept in the clear, no matter what? God! This has to be the sickest deal I ever heard of! Even if I’m wrong on two thirds of it it’s still sicker than anything I’ve run across in fifty years as a detective. Serg, I think this is just a game to keep them from getting bored.”

  “They don’t seem to go for torture or any of that. What do you mean?”

  “I’m out to kill you in any way I can. The whole bunch of you. Vice versa for the whole bunch of us. If I get caught I’m obligated to protect you and the game. This is sport and nothing personal. We’re out to kill each other, but we can still be friends.

  “That’s the best scenario. Part of it has to do with ... I can’t figure anything this sick. I try to put myself in the mind of anyone I’m after. I don’t have a reference. I can’t put myself into that frame. It’s either completely sane and logical from an unbelievably cold point of view or we have a whole bunch of totally insane crackpots.

  “Serg, if there are that many, how did they find each other? The number means it’s some kind of cult thing or something – but there’s no evidence of that kind of activity.”

  “TV movies,” Sergio replied. “They watch all those violence and horror things and see that as a part of life.”

  “They’re all too old for that kind of influence in ... maybe not, but it would be the Manson ... I wonder. Is Barbara Manson her real name or did she ... we have to know a lot about that one. That may be our big connecting clue.”

  Sergio pointed to the comp on his desk. “It’s personal. The office computer is that one on the desk with the printer. Maybe you can ... I’ll give you her passport number. That’s usually the best way to trace name changes and so forth. If you have trouble with information from the states – and you will, coming from Panamá – you can use the official connection with your consul. They cooperate when the rest of your government won’t.”

  “Uh-oh?”

  “Some kind of deal where your FBI wants us to arrest some people who they say are drug dealers. We know some of them definitely aren’t. We aren’t about to start arresting people because the big bad powerful United States gives us order. They can fuck off if you ask me!”

  Sergio never used maldiciones. Clint could see he was really getting hot about it. That was the atmosphere George W. planted. It got better for a few months after the election, now was getting as bad or worse.

  “It’s not the gringos here. It’s the ones who think being powerful in the states makes them powerful here,” Sergio said. “Most of the gringos here are very good people. It’s like that woman in Haiti in one of your cases (Comedy of Terrors) who thought the fact she could terrorize Haitians and Jamaicans into doing anything she demanded by using their fear of voodoo meant Panamanians would do anything she demanded. You saw how far that got her! Panamanians don’t give a shit about some witch woman in Haiti or about the all-powerful FBI.

  “Maybe you can find something there. I’ll check on anything I can. Will you want me to arrest Stedmann?”

  “Might as well. Maybe I can get him to talk. I’m sure he thinks he’s gotten away with a hell of a lot. He’s going to be the type to brag.”

  Sergio nodded.

  Barbara Manson was Barbara Manson. Not even a relative of Charles Manson. It wasn’t an alias. Clint decided to crossreference everyone dead he knew about and to try to find if any of the others were dead.

  Four hours and he found that Lucille and Edward Baldwin had died in Nevada when they were camping near a river on vacation three years and two months ago. They ate some sandwiches that were contaminated with botulism and were too far from medical aid and too sick to climb the mountain to their car. It was a very fast-acting form of the food poisoning and there was fear for a while that the strain might be in the area, but they apparently brought it with them in some mayonnaise that they
had inadvertently left un-refrigerated. The cooler was warm when they were found the next day by rafters.

  1+1 = 9. How many more?

  Weirder Yet

  “Serg, I’m on my way to Panamá City to see what I can learn from Stedmann. I don’t really think he’s the head ... person. It could be Faith Richards and he was conned into it by her or it could be almost anyone. There’s nothing to say that whoever’s running the game is a member of that company, though I think so.”

  “That’s something I was going to point out. It may be some evil nut from outside who set it up for personal reasons we can’t hope to determine nor understand.

  “Well, there is nothing in the law that says we must understand the motives of criminals, only that we must prosecute them, particularly where violence is part of the equation. Murder is, very certainly, considered a violent crime – even when it is with a narcotic that would make it an almost pleasant death. Definitions, you see.”

  “By any definition this is one weird situation and one weird bunch of, I guess you would have to call them people. Definitions.”

  The radio called for Sergio, who answered.

  “Sergio Sanchez? I am Sgt. Flacco. You asked that we report on the movements of a group of tourists traveling on business visas when we arrested one of them?”

  “Yes. The Stedmann case.”

  “They seem very strange people. We arrest a man who is in their group and who has been charged with killing another in that group and they seem to want to complain that it makes for a very inconvenient pause in their business dealings! They seem to think he was very stupid to get caught!

  “A woman, very beautiful, a Faith Richards, said Stedmann thought this country wouldn’t see what had happened and it was most inconsiderate of him to do anything that obvious. They are not sane, I think. They are such cold examples of the human race!”

  “Clint Faraday, who is known and who works with us in many cases as a consultant and investigator will come there to speak with Mr. Stedmann. It will be greatly appreciated by the department if you will offer him all cooperation that is legal in handling this matter.”

  “Yes. Okay, he’s gone for a minute.” Clint raised an eyebrow and Sergio said the captain was in the room. Flacco was a good friend, then into the microphone, “We also think there is something very weird about those people, Jorge. Outside the legal jargon (Sergio using a word like jargon’?) we think they are a bunch of homicidal maniacs!”

  “Yeah, Sanch. I sort of got that impression. We’ll help any way we can. Clint Faraday is a name known and respected here.”

  He whispered, “Capitan Nuncio!” then went back to the “official” voice. “We will offer any and all cooperation we may legally tender to your operative, Mr. Faraday.

  “Base clear.”

  “Weirder yet,” Clint said. Sergio nodded and looked very grim.

  Clint went back to his house in Bocas Town, spent some time with Judi – who said a girl at the garden club had a brother who went to Los Angeles for an engineering firm to find someone who could help with the oil refinery and had met the man who had died in the car crash on the Changuinola road. He was with a man they called “Don” and who was a very managerial type who wanted to run everything so he went to another firm to find an engineer. Did that help?

  “You know, it just might!

  “Judi, you can come up with information we couldn’t find in four days of research with all the modern methods! How do you DO it?”

  “Practice, practice, practice.

  “Clint, you want to find things and ask in ways that make people suspicious about why you ask. You don’t do it with the Indios because you know damned well they’ll clam. I inject a word or so into a conversation and move on. They say things and I act like it’s interesting, but only as an anecdote, then pass on. They usually forget they said anything. It’s a psychological approach.”

  “Whatever, now you’ve pointed out something I was doing wrong all along. I think you’re a better detective than me!”

  “I can get information. You know what to do with it after we have it. I don’t.”

  “We make a hell of a good team, don’t we?”

  “Sorta. Got to go to the vigilante meeting.”

  “Why? You don’t own a business here.”

  “Neither does Dave, but they always invite him. I sort of was invited to tag along when I went the first time with him.”

  “Anyhow, I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’ll go crazy if I can’t find what this crap’s about! I think it’s a very, very sick game they’re playing. Good friends who kill off each other to see who lives longest. I suppose that one’s the winner – or something.”

  Judi shuddered. “As you say, sick, sick, sick.”

  “Well, you have to admit it fights boredom!”

  She gave him the finger. He laughed, she left, he cleared everything up on the computer to clear up and finish what he could of that and packed things for a couple of days in Panamá City.

  He then went to Changuinola for a flight to David. They didn’t go to Bocas Town from David anymore.

  He stopped in Almirante to discuss things with Sergio. He reported that the group wanted his permission to go on to Colombia to continue their business trip. They were told they could possibly leave in two more days after they gave their testigo declarations.

  “They are so damned cold!” Sergio complained. “I think they feel nothing at anytime about anything!”

  “That’s a pretty good description,” Clint agreed. “God! I hate cities!”

  “You like David. It is a favorite place to you.”

  “David isn’t like any city I’ve ever seen. It’s ... different. A big town, not a city.”

  “A town? With high rises, casinos, very fine restaurants, shopping malls?”

  “That’s what makes it so different. It also has very warm and friendly people who have time to say `Buenos!’ and are helpful as anyone can be. It’s tranquil except for a few blocks around Centro. Dave’s apartment’s five blocks from Centro and it’s like a very quiet suburb – except when one neighbor cranks up the stereo until the neighbors begin to complain. Panamanians love noise. The bars are so loud you have to scream at each other across the table. Stores have loudspeakers on the street that almost knock you down when you walk past. It’s strange and a little irritating to gringos, but has an odd charm. I only wish they’d play something besides salsa and regaton. I’m sick to death of the same dozen songs over and over again for six years.

  “There’s very little pollution. There’s nowhere near the crime a city of that size always has.”

  “We like noise. True. It’s a part of our culture.”

  Clint nodded and said he’d call when he had anything. He got a bus to Changuinola and was talking to an Indio friend when they passed the spot of the crash. His cousin was there working on timber when the crash happened and said there was no truck to cause it. Clint said he knew that.

  “He told the policia. They didn’t do anything. Gringos get away with murder here – and that is not an expression.”

  “No. They don’t. He’s been arrested in Panamá and will be convicted of murder,” Clint replied. “Pancho, the police act here in most cases. Gringos or Panamanians. They often actually are one-sided against the indigenos, but that’s changing. They’re very efficient, but quiet. They don’t want to get publicity except to an extent that people will know criminality will be prosecuted.”

  “This is true? You know it for a fact?”

  “Yeah, Pancho. I’m on my way to Panamá to help with the court to convict Stedmann.”

  “Then it is well. I will inform my cousin and the others who were there and told the policia.”

  They chatted a bit more about more pleasant subjects. Clint got to Changuinola and caught the flight to David. He would prefer to take the bus, but this was forty five minutes while the bus was four hours. He was in David five hours to speak with people concerned with this there, then ca
ught the midnight express bus to Panamá City after visiting the places where he could relax for a few minutes.

  He got to Panamá City at eight in the morning and went directly to the police station.

  An Answer or Two

  “We spoke a few minutes in Almirante,” Clint greeted Stedmann when he was led into the interrogation room. Stedmann studied him for a few seconds.

  “So. Now I understand why I’m here. A gringo cop working with the local yokels.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. Sergio saw everything in two minutes at the scene. He called me because of that. They use me with gringos they consider particularly weird. Translator.”

  “They consider me weird?” It was simply a question. No emotion in it.

  “Certainly. You know damned well you are.”

  He laughed shortly. “I guess I am. We all are in some ways.”

  “Gonna tell me what it’s about? The game?”

  “You figured it’s a game?”

  “Follow the blood. We know about nine – ten, but Carlysle wasn’t a member of the group, only some schnook who had the bad luck to look in a package of yours.

  He nodded and looked thoughtful. “And you think we’re crazy?”

  “Not much doubt is there?”

  “I sometimes wonder why I can’t ... that there’s a lack in us. We don’t react to things like on television. We don’t react to anything.”

  Clint’s turn to nod. “It’s a rather strange psychological constitutional condition. I just wonder how the bunch of you found each other.”

  “We were led together by a friend of Fuh ... one of us. He set things up because he found life to be incredibly boring. He’s a genius in some ways. He’s a control freak who wanted to set something up that he couldn’t control after its inception. He wants a challenge.”

  Clint remembered what Judi said. Don. It wasn’t Wentworth, so... “Fieldman. Yeah. Faith is more or less his agent.” Clint also noticed that “He wants” – so Fieldman was still among the living.