by Moulton, CD
His suspect list, serious suspects, was growing shorter. Sancho was driving, then with Clint with the food. Cecilio was with Clint and Judi that whole time working on the food.
The rest would wait until morning. Clint wanted a clear view of their facial expressions and body language when he asked his questions. He would spend awhile going through Santamaria’s luggage very carefully. There was a large maleta and a briefcase/ laptop case – with no laptop? There wasn’t anything in the laptop side except two memory sticks that were in with the papers on the briefcase side and two cellulars, one Movistar and one Mas Movil and chargers for them.
Clothes, shaving kit and such, extra shoes – totally ordinary.
Clint looked through the papers. Not much to tell him anything unless he knew what to look for. There wasn’t a note about being threatened or anything. Most of it was standard stuff that might be carried by any businessman.
Santamaria had been a supplier to hardware stores. Painting and gluing materials and tools with a sideline of making signs of all types. He apparently had a small shop for that in Santiago. He lived close to Santiago on a finca that he rented out to some cattle ranchers for pasture. He supplied in Chitre, Las Tablas and all the towns on the peninsula and back toward Santiago. He had orders from Las Tablas, Chitre and Piedasi this trip.
Cecilio said he remembered that he got on the bus on the corner after the terminal as it left. He had put his maleta under the seat and left a small wrapped package there to reserve the seat, then had arranged for the bus to pick him up there because he had to meet a business cita (date). That could mean a lot. If someone was following him and saw him getting the bus they could get in a seat behind and have a newspaper or something hiding them when he boarded later. He could have suspected that he was being followed and arranged getting on the bus a block from the terminal so a follower wouldn’t be able to catch the same bus. That would mean he expected some kind of attack or something. He should have left ... maybe he did! That computer was gone!
Clint could only hope the memory sticks were deliberately put in the briefcase section of the carry-case, so taking the ones stored with the computer wouldn’t give the taker the information he/she was taking it to hide.
Clint decided to wait until morning to look further. He was getting an idea about where to look.
He thought a moment, then woke Sancho and said to very quietly come with him to the bus. There was something there they had to find. Cecilio was there with the keys to the bus and would know where every little thing that was out of place should be. That was part of his job.
The computer was very easy to find. It had the running light on and the low battery light on. It was under the first seat behind the driver. It was running a program. “Format Hard Drive.” There had been something on that computer the killer thought must not be found. He could hope it was also on one of the memory sticks.
There was a camera download cord under the seat. Was it a picture? Where was the camera?
They searched the bus. No camera under a seat or whatever.
Did that mean the killer had that camera? All he/she would have to do is format the memory. Surely the camera wasn’t thrown out the window or such.
That would mean the killer also still had those memory sticks. Throwing them out the window would be too dangerous. Anyone finding them would automatically run them to see what was there. That was two things that would possibly identify the killer.
Sancho called Clint from halfway back in the bus. He found six memory sticks stuffed in the seam in back of the seatpads of two seats. He handed them to Clint.
Well, there were probably no prints on them anyway.
They didn’t find the camera. Clint took the memory sticks back and plugged them into the USB ports on his laptop. They were formatted. The killer thought of that so the camera would be formatted, too. All finding it would do is identify the killer – if they could even prove it was Santamaria’s camera. He didn’t even know the brand of the camera.
Shit!
He and Sancho went back to the camp in the culverts. It would have to wait for morning – about two hours away.
Only for Some
Clint had waited to look at those memory sticks from the case until he had a hint of what to look for. He did that while Judi and the women were preparing breakfast. They had flour and oil and everything else they needed. The Indio women knew how to make excellent hojaldres (fried bread) and tortillas they served with boiled eggs. Judi had made deviled eggs out of part of the eggs. Several of the Panamanians wouldn’t eat them when they were told they were called huevos diablitos, translated to mean “the eggs of the devil.” The Indios grinned at her. That meant more for them. They believed that any “devil” who existed was inside a person, not someone who would torment their souls for eternity as a reward for worshiping him. They found the concept ridiculous to the point it was silly. The idea of hell was as silly. Hell was also inside a person.
“Not true!” Judi said, grinning. “This is a detour through hell right here!”
“Only for some,” Yajaira replied, eyes sparkling and a laugh in her voice. “Some find it a good time for most where we get to know other people. The gringas are very nice. We are a curiosity for them. They don’t understand us, but we don’t understand them, so it’s equal!”
Clint grinned when he overheard that. This really was a detour through hell for Judi and for most of the Panamanians. It wasn’t particularly for him now that the rain was lessening and it certainly wasn’t for the Indios. He had a mystery to solve and only until the road was opened to solve it. He hoped to have it solved before darkness tonight.
He looked around at the group. More than half of them were up for coffee and hojaldres. The Indio kid was up with his father and drank a cup of the strong coffee they liked with them. He was ready to go to work, as usual. He had his duties and chores since he was about six years of age and would have a strong work ethic for the rest of his life as a result. It was part of their culture. Everyone worked cooperatively for the family and community.
A large truck was heard in the distance so the equipment to repair the road was on its way. Clint went to his laptop and turned it on. He would wait until after breakfast to interview the rest of them.
The first memory stick was just business data. He scanned pages of invoices and such without finding anything special. There were no pictures-as-pictures in the memory, though there were product pictures and so forth as PDF files.
The second stick had a couple of pages that were in code among the business items. There were several pictures, but nothing in the least out of the ordinary. They were of stores and fincas, with two of a waterfall from across a valley. Clint had seen that fall.
This was nothing. Clint stopped with the cursor over a picture icon. A fine script came on the screen beside the arrow: 14-4-11, 10:50AM, Olympus 850.
He was in luck in one way – an Olympus Stylus 850 was a special camera that could be used underwater. There was no way two such cameras would be on that bus. The odds against that were tremendous.
Clint did have one thing he could do now. He could find that camera if he had to search every item in that bus. He had the authority as an agent for the police here in Panamá. It would be fun listening to an explanation of why a person would have that kind of camera – unless it was one of the tourists. Surfers sometimes carried that kind of camera, though it wouldn’t be likely it was the same model. They were sitting on a culvert eating breakfast. He decided to eliminate them first thing, though he never had a serious thought they would be involved.
He asked them if they carried cameras. They did. He said he would like to borrow one to use for pictures of the crime scene and so forth.
Goodson went to her backpack and handed him – an Olympus Stylus 850.
Shit!
He hit the memory button and saw scenes from weeks back. More than a hundred shots, though the 850 would record a thousand before you had to empty it. He remark
ed that it was a really good camera.
“I have one,” Sandy Barnes said. “A lot of us water players have them. They’re pretty good.”
She said hers was on the bus, which wasn’t too smart. She should have thought to bring it or it could disappear.
Odds of two such cameras on one bus in the middle of nowhere were beyond calculating, at least to Clint. There were three here. Clint shook his head and said he was going to take a few pictures of the scene and would be right back. Half an hour. He would bring Sandy’s camera back if she liked. She would.
He went to the bus and did take pictures of everything. He should have thought of that from the first. He had a camera and Judi had one. He had to take some with this camera for cover when he asked about other cameras.
He checked out the luggage that was still on the bus. There wasn’t much so the killer had taken the camera to the culverts.
He went back to hand Sandy her pack and to download all the pictures he’d taken from her camera. She asked that he leave them in the memory for her own memories.
Everyone was up and about except Armando Sucha. It was almost eight o’clock. Where was he?
Several people went to look into all the culverts. Pacho Sandros called that he found him. He was dead. His throat was cut.
This was getting out of hand! Sancho had put that Sucha was from Costa Rica on the list. It wasn’t so bad when this mess was limited to a small area, but did this mean something about it reached into Costa Rica? Costa Rica was a long way from this area.
Clint sighed and said everyone was to come to the kitchen area and were to stay together. Period. They were to bring their luggage and were to keep a solid grip on it. One of them would have a hell of a lot to explain before this was over.
Everyone was willing to cooperate. The Indios and the tourists were together most of the time already and had a sort of rapport developed. They were interested in each other.
They all put their luggage on the top of the culverts in plain sight of all. No one objected or resisted in any way so Clint knew the camera was somehow disposed of. It would be gone – but how? When?
When the killing here was done. That put a severe limit on where it could be.
Clint could trust the Indios, except Vargas. He didn’t know anything about him and he didn’t hang around the rest of the Indios. The way they stuck together meant that left a couple of very important questions to be answered.
He would call each one and they would bring him the luggage. He would look through it and ask a couple of questions.
Maria Guerra was first. She didn’t know much of anything. She kept most of her attention on her children. This was not a good thing for children to be exposed to. It was horrible! There was nothing – like a camera – in her luggage.
Jose and Ana Ricardo were going to Panamá City to shop and visit her grandmother, who lived there. There was nothing in their luggage, but that gave Clint an idea that could be important. Jose was from Divisa and Ana was originally from Panamá City, but had lived in Las Tablas for nine years before she married Jose three years ago and moved to Divisa. They took the Las Tablas bus because they went there to buy a gift for her grandmother.
Dona Comacho was from Bugaba, She was in Las Tablas for a vacation and was going home. She was the head teller at Global Bank. There was a camera in her luggage, but it was a Maxell.
Arturo Taylor was more a solitary type. He was from Piedasi for the past three years and was from Santiago before that. He was going to Santiago to visit his brother on the farm they co-owned there. He had worked for IDAAN for ten years. He had a Look camera in his carry-case. Nothing else of interest. He had gone to breakfast about six and didn’t see anyone or anything out of the ordinary.
The Sandros family were from Colón and were there to try to find a place to move to. They hated Colón and its crime. It was dangerous to even walk down the street anymore. They weren’t wanted anywhere. As soon as they mentioned Colón people turned to ice toward them.
Clint knew how that was. Colón has such a bad reputation that people will become suspicious if you’re from there. Blacks had it really hard. There were plenty of good, decent people among them, but they had to live with the reputation the criminal types established. Clint suggested they try Bocas. They’d come to that conclusion already and would go there next. There was the usual among their luggage, plus a little bag of pot. Clint grinned at Pacho and put it back. Pacho giggled. They had two cameras. A Kodak and a Look.
Guillermo Robinson was from Arenas, on the other side of the peninsula. He was in Las Tablas to see a man who wanted to buy his large finca on the seashore there. He would go to Santiago for the papers and plano for his property and the certification then would go back to Las Tablas. His luggage was normal – except for an Olympus Stylus 850 wrapped in a blue bandana. When Clint pulled it out, Robinson cried, “That isn’t mine! How did it get there?!”
Clint questioned him carefully. He had been up since about six fifteen, had used the rocks down by the stream for a restroom, had met with Jose and Ana for breakfast. His maleta was in the culvert where he slept. He was the only one in it. He couldn’t sleep if there was anyone else there. Several were like that. Anyone could have put the camera in his maleta. Shit!
Pedro Vargas was Indio, but wasn’t very well accepted by many of them because he was working in a white man’s job and doing very well with it. He was from Santa Fe and was on his way home. His luggage was normal, though Clint felt he already had the camera and that it was a dead end clue.
There was one thing Clint saw as soon as the maleta was opened. There was a charger for the special batteries used only in the Olympus Stylus cameras. Vargas had no idea of how it got there. He was another who got up early and left the maleta in the culvert where he slept. The only other person in that culvert was Arturo Taylor and he was up early, too.
David Estevez was a real estate agent from El Valle. He had lived in Panamá City for the past eleven years. He went to University there, then worked for a broker, then went into business for himself. He was in Chitre to consult with a broker there about a large seaside finca for sale.
“Near Chitre?”
“No. Pocri. It isn’t that far, but can’t be called Chitre.”
Clint knew about Pocri. He nodded. There was nothing of interest in his luggage.
That was his crop of suspects. Nowhere else to look, so get at finding something here. The internet connection wouldn’t work there, as the cellulars wouldn’t work there.
No Connections
Clint thought for a few minutes. He didn’t have anything to hang anything on. Personality didn’t give him a clue. He had to find what the killings were about. What connected the two victims and someone else?
There was that code. Two pages of that code. It could hold all the answers, or none of them. He didn’t know if that was connected in any way. The pictures didn’t show much. There were seven.
The waterfalls. Clint had stood close to the spot where those pictures were taken and had several pictures very much the same that he had taken. The finca pictures could well be of that finca from which the waterfall pictures were taken. It was a very large finca and was for sale. Manny was considering buying it.
David Estevez was a real estate agent/broker.
There was the back end of a car showing in the picture of the gate to the finca. It appeared to be a black Mitsubishi with a sticker of some sort on the bumper and another one in the rear window. Nothing out of the ordinary. Probably the car Santamaria drove there in ... then why take the bus here? That wasn’t quite in sync with anything he could think of – so it was probably someone else’s car. Someone who took him to see the finca. It wouldn’t be Estevez’s car. He wouldn’t be on this bus.
The other pictures: Gran Fereteria Martin. A medium-sized hardware store. Four cars out front.
Centro Supplies. Another much like the first. Two cars out front and a truck.
Almacen Florita. Same. Two cars
out front. Clint was moving to the next when he went back.
There was a black Mitsubishi with stickers. It was the same car. If he was using that car or was being chauffeured around in it, that would be why it was in two of the pictures. Not enough. It could be in any of those pictures. Logically.
Two more, then Santamaria standing in the door of a Datsun small pickup 4X4. There was an attractive woman across behind the wheel. The next picture had that truck in it with him and the woman standing beside it in front of another hardware store.
Apparently that was the transportation he was using. The black Mitsubishi suddenly became important. It was in one more picture, apparently the last taken with that camera on that date. It was a picture of the Mitsubishi with a tall gringo-looking man and a fat black man looking at some papers that were spread out on the hood. There was a third person in the picture, but he was back and to the side and wasn’t in focus well enough to identify other than that he was average.
Clint felt that man was the important one here. He also felt he could find out who that man was by tracing that car. The license plate was only partly visible in the first. Other than that it was a Panamanian plate, nothing. The second was worse. The third showed the plate started with 542. That was all.
He could find a black Mitsubishi with two stickers in specific places and with a Panamanian license plate that began with 542 and trace everything else back from that. He hadn’t the least doubt he could solve this within hours when he got back – to Chitre.
He didn’t want to wait. Two were dead already. That was already two too many.
Judi came in to tell Clint she had the Indio women looking for anything they could find. One of them was washing clothes in the stream and found a knife. She hadn’t touched it. She would show Clint where it was.
That would be the murder weapon. They had the first. It was sticking in Santamaria’s chest.
Santamaria had met with someone on this bus and had learned something. What? That it was incriminating was a given.