by Jerold Last
“After Rita Caldwell’s killing, we got pulled into helping the locals in their investigation. Raul worked his way up into a fairly high position on the suspect list because of his shady background and because he booked the cruise at the last minute. In fact, the Frigate Birds group included all of the people who booked the tour late, and we were on the inside.”
Gretchen wasn’t expecting this. Her facial expressions changed from curious to calculating to thoughtful. I could just about see the wheels going around in her head. “I suppose you’re going to say now you can’t tell me who this mysterious friend is, right?”
I smiled my best and most sincere smile. “No, not right. The friend is Eduardo Gomez. His wife, Sophia, is travelling with us here in Mexico and helping us care for Robert. Eduardo, who is Robert’s Godfather, is an old and very dear friend of ours. Eduardo is also a high-ranking police officer in Asuncion, Paraguay. I think he may also be an official in the Paraguayan Federal Police, the local equivalent of the FBI. He’s a friend, at least professionally, of General Aleman.”
Gretchen frowned. “So we didn’t bump into each other by coincidence here in Guaymas, then?”
I thought it was time to be even more forthcoming. “No, we were sent here to try to either clear or implicate you, your sister, and Raul in the murders on the Santa Cruz. Eduardo should join us here today or tomorrow, and he’s working on the case with General Aleman and Detective Obregon.”
Gretchen took a handful of cool water from the bay and splashed her face to cool off. She looked towards the nearby shore. It was the time for peak heat and humidity of the day so everyone was either swimming in the ocean or pool, or was indoors staying cool in the air-conditioned hotel. Thick adobe walls in the lower scale hotels along the beach only kept the less affluent hotel guests warm, rather than hot, so most of them were on the beaches along the bay cooling off. We were the only ones out sailing in the heat and relatively calm air. “Are Barbara and I still suspects in your mind?”
“No, I think you two are off the hook, if you were ever on it.”
Gretchen looked thoughtful again. “How about Raul?”
I thought Gretchen had the right idea so splashed some of the cool seawater on my face, arms, and body. “Good question. I think we can agree that Raul isn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier and he’s worked pretty closely with some very corrupt DEA agents, but I think he’s more stupid than dirty. My gut says he’s not involved in the killings, and everything we know about who did it and why says he’s not a suspect. We’ll know for sure after Detective Obregon makes some more arrests and people he’s already arrested start talking. My guess is there will be a contest for which crook’s lawyer can swap their testimony for the best deal and we’ll all win. In the meantime, Suzanne is doing her best to find out what Raul did or didn’t do in the Galapagos as the subtext for her date with him.”
Gretchen did the thing again with splashing water on her face and body. “So your apparent rift with Suzanne was a ploy to get us separated. You play good cop, bad cop quite well. What else can you tell me about the killings and who’s going to be arrested?”
I tried the thing with water on my head and face to cool down again. It was relatively calm out on the water, with little breeze, hot, and humid. The pause gave me a good chance to go over what I wanted to tell her. I finally decided on quite a bit. I definitely wanted her as a friend and in my debt for future reference. I also liked her and she was very attractive. “The murders were about a crazy scheme to steal Galapagos Tortoises from the hatchery on Santa Cruz Island, transport them to a favorable habitat in the Indian Ocean, and get rich selling tortoise shells in the Asian market. The ringleaders were Linda and Michael Smart. We think they killed a park ranger in the Galapagos before we got there, the original crime we were recruited to help investigate, and Rita Caldwell, the first body we found. Some of the others in our Frigate Birds group were also involved in the tortoise theft scheme. As you know, somebody also killed two more of our fellow tourists, the Weavers from Australia, who were also involved in the tortoise-farming scheme.”
A brief puff of breeze got the boat moving and felt very pleasant. “Right now, General Aleman and our nanny Bruce, along with a team of commandos from the Ecuadorian Air Force, should be on the way back to Baltra from a raid on an illegal tortoise farm on the other side of the world. Hopefully, they’ll be returning most, if not all, of the stolen tortoises to the Galapagos Islands. The tortoises should be exactly the evidence Detective Obregon needs to justify the arrests he made very discretely when we disembarked from the Santa Cruz, and to start extradition requests for a few more suspects. I understand he actually arrested the Schultz’s last Friday, and he plans to try to get the Smarts extradited back to Ecuador. I don’t know what the standard of evidence to justify a warrant for arrest is in Ecuador, but I suspect it’s pretty similar, at least on paper, to our system. We should get an update tomorrow or Tuesday when we hear from Bruce and Eduardo.”
The breeze strengthened and our sailboat started to move at a good clip. Gretchen lay back in the boat enjoying the breeze. “This is actually very nice once there’s a breeze to get the boat moving, Roger. I think maybe Raul was right about one thing. You have interesting friends. How do you think he and Suzanne are getting along today?”
I thought about it. “I don’t know. We’ll have to ask her when we get back to the hotel. I think she’ll like you and your sister a lot more when she finds out who you really are. Who knows, maybe we’ll have another case together some time?”
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Suzanne, the Kaufman sisters, and I were sitting at a table in the hotel bar an hour or two later drinking cold beer and discussing the case. I had explained to her in the room before coming downstairs what I’d learned about the two sisters and why we were on the same side here. She had sunburn and a few opinions to show for her day of horseback riding.
Suzanne told all three of us about her day trail riding with Raul. “The whole area around here, especially the mountains, is beautiful in a special way I’ve seen in other deserts. There’s a lot of life that’s evolved to not only survive but to flourish under some pretty extreme conditions. I loved seeing everything we rode through today. Raul is very handsome and very charming, but he’s boring company as I suspect you two ladies have already found out. There was a movie a couple of years ago called “Shallow Hal”, about a self-centered jerk who was completely into superficial appearances and couldn’t care less what women were really about or what they were thinking. That’s Raul. He also spent most of the ride trying to put some moves on me. Fortunately, I’m better on a horse than he is, so he never got close enough to do any damage.”
She sipped some beer before continuing. “I don’t think he has either the intelligence or the attention span to have been a significant participant in a complex plot like the theft of the Galapagos Tortoises. I tried to ask him about all the people we met on the tour. Any woman over 30 didn’t interest him because he didn’t see them as sexual objects, and the men bored him because they weren’t potential sexual conquests. He hit his most profound insight when he described Rita Caldwell’s dead body as ‘kind of cute’. I really don’t see Raul as an international tortoise thief. Could he have killed somebody? Sure, anyone could under the right circumstances. Did he? I don’t think so. I think he’d have bragged about it to me if he had. But I did learn one thing that was very interesting from Raul today.”
Suzanne paused to heighten the drama. Gretchen broke first. “What did you learn that was so interesting, Suzanne?”
Suzanne managed to string the pause out a little longer by sipping some more beer before continuing. “I learned what attracted Raul to you two in Quito.”
Barbara perked up. “Really! What was that?”
Suzanne smiled then continued. “Raul really doesn’t like Roger. He talked his way into this assignment as one of two choices he
was offered by the DEA after his buddies were killed in the case in California. I gather his other choice would have been spending his life in a file room putting paper into drawers and behind a desk in a very junior position going nowhere in Washington DC. He was on his way to Ecuador when a routine check of the tourist agency’s computer files flagged Roger’s name as coming on this tour. He somehow convinced himself this was the chance to catch Roger in the act as a big time drug dealer and get back into the DEA’s good graces. Raul figured this was a big meeting to set up a drug deal and that Roger would be getting together with his accomplices in the Galapagos. Somehow, he decided you two were the most likely suspects, so he attached himself to you two as a way of getting the goods on Roger. Don’t tell me. Just let me guess. Was it Raul’s idea to hang out with you and accidentally bump into us at the museum in Quito?”
Gretchen laughed out loud. “Bulls-eye, Suzanne. So we wasted a week and a whole lot of the U.S. taxpayer’s money investigating Raul and Raul wasted a week and a lot of taxpayer’s money investigating us, while you guys solved four murders and prevented a major international conspiracy to decimate a protected species. I think I’m beginning to see why you and Suzanne are in demand as detectives, Roger. Don’t be too surprised if I actually do call you for help one of these days.”
Just then Raul appeared with a fresh beer in his hand and sat down at the table beside Barbara Kaufman. He spoke directly to Barbara while including all of us. “Did you have a good day today without me?”
“I needed a chance to rest and take it easy,” she replied, falling comfortably back into her role as a naive tourist. “The tennis was fun until it got too hot and the swimming pool was great. We’ve been sitting here talking to Roger and Suzanne while we waited for you to join us.”
Raul self-importantly announced, “I just made my flight arrangements and I’ll be heading back to work in Quito tomorrow morning. I hope we can have some fun in the nightclub tonight, Barbara. In the meantime I’ll say good-bye to Roger and Suzanne here. Don’t get too comfortable, Roger. I’m sure we’ll meet again, and next time you’ll get everything that’s coming to you!” He stood up, accidentally on purpose knocking over my beer bottle and glass before he walked away.
I decided to let him have his little macho victory in front of the women, so let him walk off unchallenged. As long as he remained posted to Quito, I would almost certainly never have to see or deal with him again. On the other hand, if he ever showed up in Los Angeles all bets were off. He owed me a beer and a whole lot more. In the meantime I made a mental note to ask Eduardo to have a brief chat with General Aleman and Juan Obregon about Raul Vonhorst. Perhaps Eduardo might be willing to cash in some of his goodwill karma from this case to ask them to make sure Raul’s professional career and life in general in Ecuador didn’t go too smoothly.
Chapter22.A reunion in Mexico
Shakespeare: All’s well that ends well
It was Tuesday evening at the Hotel Paradiso in Guaymas, with five of us gathered around the bar drinking ice-cold beers before dinner. General Aleman had just flown Bruce and Eduardo up from Baltra in the Gulfstream 650, and was joining us for dinner before returning to Ecuador later tonight. The plane was far too valuable to leave unguarded overnight in this part of the world, but it was probably safe for a few hours. If not, there were two very well armed commandos on board to make sure it would be there ready to go when the general returned.
The Kaufman sisters returned to San Francisco on today’s flight, while Raul had departed on yesterday’s flight to Quito, by way of Mexico City. We’d played with Robert on the beach again this morning and I’d taken Suzanne sailing, which she greatly enjoyed in real life, this afternoon. The breezes had been kind so we had a great afternoon of fun together, thanks to Sophia.
There was a lot of catching up to do. Bruce filled us in on the details of his trip to Diego Garcia. The flight back to Baltra had been uneventful, and they made good time despite slight headwinds all the way across both oceans and an extra ton and a half give or take of tortoises on the flight. Bruce and the general returned all fourteen juvenile tortoises they had recovered to the Charles Darwin facility on Santa Cruz, which had buses waiting at Baltra airport and Zodiacs to ferry the tortoises across the channel under the watchful eye of the veterinarians from the Galapagos Reserve. A frantic search of the birth records at the Galapagos facility had come up with a total of fourteen missing juveniles they had previously hatched and lost, in addition to eight more juvenile tortoises currently en route to Diego Garcia by slow freighter, so the park rangers were ecstatic that all of the stolen tortoises were accounted for.
Arrangements had already been made for the U.S. Navy to intercept the freighter and take possession of the tortoises a few hundred miles east of Diego Garcia, outside of British territorial waters. The tortoises would be flown back to Baltra immediately, courtesy of the U.S. Navy, their way of apologizing for what the Smarts had done. Of course, an indeterminate number of larger tortoises might have been poached by the Smarts and their accessories from the wild but for now the Galapagos Islands Reserve had all of the known tortoise kidnap victims accounted for.
General Aleman had maintained a discrete radio silence until well east of Diego Garcia but updated Eduardo on the action by radio as soon as he thought it was safe to do so. By then it was some time in the wee small hours of Monday morning, Baltra time. Detective Obregon had already arrested the Schultz’s on Friday, before they could leave Ecuador. They were in for some intensive questioning later that morning after an unpleasant weekend in jail to think about their sins.
Eduardo initiated some back-channel communications from Paraguay to the U.S. State Department about two high-ranking officers in the U.S. Navy violating the sanctity of the Galapagos Islands Reserve and possibly murdering four people, one U.S. citizen, two Australians, and an Ecuadorian Park Ranger. Eduardo was assured the Smarts, who were in the midst of a long slow trip back to Diego Garcia, would be under arrest the moment they stepped off the C5A military transport plane they were flying from Travis Air Force Base in Northern California. The best guess as to when that might be was just about the same time as we had sat down to drink our beers.
Just in case, General Aleman also radioed his new buddy, the base commander at Diego Garcia, and filled him in on what they had done while visiting his base. The general emphasized the importance of collecting DNA evidence from the fenced-in area to build a case against Linda and Michael Smart before anyone else visited the facility.
General Aleman told us the base commander from Diego Garcia had taken pains to tell him a few things in return. “You’ve been a very naughty boy, but you’re excused this time since you helped us here on Diego Garcia to solve a particularly vexing problem of how to get rid of two dishonest and incompetent senior officers in the U.S. Navy.” The Navy officer went on to say, “I hope to learn more about the details of what you actually did and how you found out about the plot over a drink some day. Most of all”, he said, “I’m pleased to learn that an Ecuadorian Air Force general is a better navigator than you seemed to be when you diverted your aircraft to Diego Garcia.”
The general went on to tell us the base commander shared one more key detail with him. The Smarts, who had first become a couple during their college years in Annapolis, had indeed screwed up early in their careers, leading to their undistinguished record, slow promotions, and ultimately to their long-term posting to Diego Garcia. There had been an episode shortly after their graduation from Annapolis when a friend and fellow naval officer had mysteriously disappeared while the three of them were sailing, and was presumed to have drowned in Chesapeake Bay. Nobody could prove anything, but there were whispers that the dead officer had tried to make a pass at Linda and suspicion that he might have had help falling overboard. Those suspicions followed both of the Smarts throughout their disappointing careers.
Suzanne suggested thoughtfully, “So that makes one or both of the Smarts a serial killer. It’s
amazing how such charming people, at least externally, can kill with no remorse for their entire lives without it showing in some way!”
“It’s often typical of true sociopaths that their outward persona can be completely charming,” I replied. “Perhaps the only time we saw the real Michael Smart on this entire cruise through the Galapagos was when he demonstrated how he’d shoot the finches on Genovesa Island if we loaned him our pointing dogs.”
Suzanne updated everybody on what had been going on in Guaymas, and Sophia’s suggestion that turned out so well. Everyone agreed with her assessment that Raul was not involved in the tortoise theft ring, but was either very stupid, very dishonest, or most probably both. General Aleman promised to whisper a few words into Detective Obregon’s ear about Raul’s shortcomings and promised he’d be watched for as long as he remained in Ecuador, which wouldn’t be long at all.
Eduardo chuckled before adding, “I forgot to mention the highlighted coded entries in Raul’s tourist guides you spotted, Bruce. I sent the e-mail photos to our cryptography experts who succeeded in decoding them. They were in some sort of highly idiosyncratic Spanish language shorthand Vonhorst had invented. He apparently had transcribed comments made by the guides during the tours of the islands and his reaction to their style and content. The bottom line is the comments were innocuous and it seems that even if he is a lousy cop and a crummy human being, he was giving the travel agency he worked for their money’s worth of effort.”