Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (44 page)

“
Er, he,
uh, wanted to assign his total assets to the, uh, Smithsonian
Research Center here. I suppose, now that he’s dead and the papers
weren’t notarized so they aren’t in effect in any case, I can tell
you about it.”

“
I see,”
Clint said. “Thank you.”

“
Who will
pay the fees?” Rallardes asked.

“
Nobody,”
Clint replied. “Note the services weren’t completed.”

“
No! He
already paid you! He always paid everything in advance! Everything!
It was his basic hard rule in business. Pay in advance on a
contract and you can demand service on a timeline or get a
reduction for non-performance. What the hell are you trying to
pull?” Amanda demanded.

“
He’s a
lawyer. He’s trying to get paid twice because he thinks no one will
ever know,” Serg explained. “We’ll be in touch soon for a copy of
those papers – and the contract, Rallardes.”

Rallardes left. The group waited silently for
a moment, staring around at each other. Clint noted the looks, but
nothing was particularly strange.

“
What
now?” Wanda finally asked.

“
We have
to gather some more information, then we’ll see that you have
control of the bodies after the autopsies,” Dr. Astrades answered.
“We’ll need to know who, other than the present group, came into
this room in the last two hours and why they came.”

“
I doubt
anyone but Don,” Amanda said. “He would never let anyone from
outside in. Don sorted his pills for him. I think I wonder about
that lawyer. He would let someone in he was doing business
with.”

“
The
lawyer wouldn’t have a motive,” Clint pointed out. “Lawyers don’t
do anything without reason. If he had one it will come out in those
papers.”

“
Someone
bought some curare. There will be a record,” Dr. Astrades
suggested. “They will have arranged with someone among a very
limited group here to obtain it. We can find it, then we find the
killer.”

“
How long
have you been here?” Clint asked George.

“
Only
since yesterday afternoon. The three o’clock flight from San José.
Nature Air.”

“
How long
were you in San José?” Dr. Astrades asked.

“
Three
days,” Amanda answered.

“
Then I
can find it faster and much easier than if it were obtained here
locally,” Dr. Astrades replied. They all looked a bit nervous, but
not particularly so. “He took regular injections and they probably
were administered by one of you. Who?”

“
Don,”
Trudy said. “The others didn’t know about it. About how regular it
was. They knew he gave an injection now and then.”

“
Yes. I
found disposable syringes and several phials of morphine,” Astrades
said. “I suppose the curare was in a syringe or in the new
phial.”

“
I
suppose someone in our nutty little group should be getting a bit
scared about now,” Amanda said happily. “Who will it be? I don’t
think Wanda ... or George ... or me?

“
Whatever, let’s get what you need done so we can get some
sleep. Maybe Don will keep me awake a bit, but that old tyrant
kicking off will probably make me sleep better. The tension is a
hell of a lot less.

“
Doctor,
when you find who, give me time to see how I can get a good defense
for knocking off Papa. I don’t think Don will make them any points.
He didn’t deserve this.”

“
It makes
me wonder why he’s dead,” George agreed. “The old bastard, almost
expected. Don? WHY, damnit?!”

“
Maybe he
knew something?” Wanda asked. “Like who bought some curare in San
José?”

“
Then it
would be for ... nothing,” Amanda said. “The doctor will know who
pretty fast. Don will be hard to forgive.”

“
Oye!
What’s this crap, now?” Dr. Astrades asked, checking over
Lawrence’s body. “What was he taking?”

Clint went over. Dr. Astrades was holding up
one of Lawrences hands. Astrades pointed to the fingernails and
said he was on some kind of chemotherapy program. It made the nails
get those little ridges and discolorations. It was also an
explanation of the baldness. Everyone looked at everyone else. They
all seemed to be confused by that information. They knew he was
taking a lot of pills, but he told them they were mostly vitamins
for his nerves and a skin condition. Don had a long box with
numbered chambers that he gave him every couple of hours or once a
day or whatever according to the bin number.

“
Has he
always been such a mean overbearing obnoxious tyrant as he seemed
earlier?” Clint asked of George.

Wanda answered, “Well, yes. He was getting
worse and worse for the past couple of months, but not really so
much anyone would notice. He was always a vicious person. That
part’s nothing recent!”

“
He was
always nasty, but started getting worse when Mom died sixteen years
ago,” Amanda explained. “She managed to keep him from being too
terrible. I remember him being fun at times when I was little. He
was getting a lot more controlling for about four years before Mom
died.”

“
What did
your mother die of?” Serg asked.

“
Moms?
Why?” George asked.

“
Because
one or all of you might blame him for her death,” Clint
answered.

“
In a
way, I guess we did,” Amanda replied. “He drove her to nervous
exhaustion. The tension was more and more. She died of heart
failure. Infarction and extreme arhythm.”

“
Let’s
say we were all aware he added to the problem and she died before
her time because of what he put her through,” Wanda added. “He
didn’t do much directly to her, but how he treated all of us made
her crazy at times.”

“
I have
to get in contact with his doctor in the US,” Dr. Astrades stated.
“All the signs are there that he suffered a deteriorating cancer
problem. His general condition seems very bad.

“
Well, I
can’t do anything more here. You can transport.”

He talked with Serg for a couple of minutes
and left after asking Clint to promise to deliver the napkin as
soon as he could. Clint shook his head and said he’d as much as
forgotten it. It was in a plastic bag in his pocket. He gave it to
Astrades.

Half an hour later he and Sergio left.

“
The
napkin had a heavy dose of an amyl-based heart medicine. It would,
with the bit of added morphine, have killed anyone drinking even
twenty cc’s in two minutes. It would stop the heart completely,”
Dr. Astrades informed Clint and Serg at seven thirty in the
morning.

“
The
curare? Costa Rica? Too soon?” Clint asked.

“
No help.
That took about ten minutes. None unaccounted-for in Costa Rica,”
he answered. “Of course, there are people who grow the stuff there,
but none of that bunch would be able to get any in that short a
time without having previous arrangements. They’ve never contacted
anyone in Costa Rica – or here, for that matter – before this trip.
It was part of a tour the old man booked and was handled by the
agent in Switzerland. I talked to the agent and to his lawyer, Sven
Orison, on the web. From what I’ve found so far he would have died
within two months from cancer of the kidneys that was spreading to
the lungs. He was on chemotherapy that had run its course and was
not successful in more than slowing the progress of the cancer. He
was taking a lot of powerful painkillers that were not totally
successful in stopping the pain.

“
I have
arranged to discuss the case with his doctor in Switzerland over
the net. He is very nervous about it. I think he’s just a rich
man’s quack and was trying some experimental cure or other and went
to standard chemo after he found it wasn’t working. That could well
result in a lawsuit for withholding an approved medication until
the disease had progressed to an incurable state.

“
It will
take a day to find where they got the curare here. Costa Rica is
easy for stuff bought on the spur of the moment. Panamá is
not.”

They chatted for a few minutes, then Clint
headed for Rallardes office. He had suddenly been called to Panamá
City last evening and was gone, according to the note on the
door.

The plane left at eight-thirty. Clint sighed
and said they could stop it. This was a lawyers’ trick to delay
things. He would take the legal papers to Panamá City where he
would conveniently forget to bring them back when he returned,
making it necessary to contact the head of the firm in Panamá City
to send them on the plane. The head of the firm would demand a writ
before any information could be obtained from their offices. They
had established a solid reputation to protect, blah, blah,
blah.

“
So.
There’s probably nothing at all in those papers. He told us too
much already. It’s not worth the headaches.”

“
Uh-uh.
And the next case will put them into a precedent state with you so
you go through six more silly delays for something you need. I
think those papers will tell me something important. It’s possible
– if unlikely – that there’ll be a specific name
mentioned.

“
I want
to know if Donald was a bit more aggressive at kissing up than the
others. He WAS the one who handled the medications.”

“
Ah! So
that everyone is cut out except him, maybe?”

“
Maybe.”

“
Not even
a nice try,” Clint greeted Rallardes. “Why do you lawyers always
try the same silly routine?”

“
Er,
Faraday, wasn’t it?” he replied, eyes looking for a way out and
finding nothing. “I, ah, have to be in court in Panamá City this
afternoon. I will return in two to three days.”

“
Oh,
what’s the case number?” Serg asked. “I have a friend on legal who
can have your time set up a couple of hours. You can be on the next
flight.”

“
Er.”

“
You can
just give us the papers and contracts now and catch this plane,”
Clint suggested.

“
Um. I,
uh, that is, don’t know the case number. I’m a witness for, uh, for
another attorney in the firm.”

“
Then you
can call him or her now and tell them your refusal to cooperate
with the police in a double homicide has landed you where you will
seriously need the services of the firm in your own defense,” Serg
stated sharply. “You are being detained for the impeding of an
official investigation. You will be held in the local carcel until
statements – such as that you are going to Panamá City for another
attorney’s case – can be checked.

“
Or you
can hand us the papers and go on.”

Rallardes was sweating, pale and looking a
little dizzy. He coughed and went to sit on the bench to open his
briefcase and hand Serg several sheets of legal contracts. Serg
read them over, but didn’t hand them to Clint. Clint was there as
an aide and didn’t have clearance to see them.

“
Do I
have your permission to show these to my aide?” Serg asked of
Rallardes, who nodded.

Serg handed Clint a page that was a legal
will/contract that would leave all his assets in cash to the
Smithsonian, leave the lands he owned to his children equally
divided and all other assets, including the art and jewelry, stocks
and bonds, farm stocks and products to the International Cancer
Research Fund.

“
So!
Leave them a lot of valuable land with no way to pay inheritance
taxes!” Serg pointed out.

“
He was
one nasty son of a bitch,” Clint agreed.

A minute later Serg snorted and handed the
contract with Rallardes to Clint. He got ten percent of everything
except the land as probator of the terms of the will.

Serg handed him four sheets listing the
assets. Seven and a half million Euros. Clint read over the sheets
and said he thought he knew where the curare came from. Serg said
probably right here. Rallardes certainly had the motive!

“
No
damned way!” Clint replied. “No notary. No motive. Not
legal.”

“
Ha! Then
you don’t know so much about notaries and lawyers here. He can take
this document to Panamá City and have it notarized and backdated in
ten minutes. He WAS taking this stuff to Panamá City!”

“
That’s a
point.”

Rallardes actually squealed. Serg winked at
Clint. Rallardes didn’t have any way to get the curare and
certainly wouldn’t have the guts to kill anyone – unless it was an
act. He would have the guts to hire it done.

“
You can
go on to Panamá City now, but be aware you remain under official
investigation here until the matter is resolved,” Serg lectured
sternly. “Should you try to leave the country or otherwise display
probability of guilt you will be charged.”

“
I didn’t
do anything! I was only going to try to get my fee from them! With
this I get nothing until he dies!”

“
Which he
very conveniently did?” Serg asked.

“
Beside
which he paid you two hundred dollars in cash for your services,”
Clint added, holding up the receipt that had been stapled to the
back of the will. Rallardes “Yeep!”ed and looked really sick. He’d
forgotten it was there.

“
Lawyers!” Serg exclaimed disgustedly. He pronounced it like
the locals reading the word. “Liars!”