Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (53 page)

“
Helmut
is a lot more involved than anyone else in the states. She might be
behind the whole thing. She knows a bunch of shady people someone
like she’s pretending to be wouldn’t know. Most of them in
Europe.

“
Martime
could be the one feeding her their information, but I don’t see
that, either. He isn’t known anywhere and hasn’t met or, so far as
we can find out, knows anyone who could set those things up. If he
hired the hits he’s by far the best actor here!”

“
He’s
purely insipid,” Sergio said. “He was a minor gigolo who hung
around the race crowd in Switzerland and went to Belgium a lot to
meet older women with money. He met Wanda Lesley, saw she had one
hell of a lot more coming than any of his two-week affairs and
latched onto her like a tick on a hound.

“
Manolo,
a character with mob connections in San Blas, gave me the
information and said no one but Clint, who he had made a deal with
to exchange information with no one ever being mentioned, was to
get it from me.

“
Clint
would include this group, I hope. If not, I owe him an
apology.”

“
He’s not
into anything that would hurt anyone who didn’t almost beg for it.
No problem, but no one else. He does have a network who can do us
some good at times. We’re friends who will never let the other
down.”

Manny didn’t say anything, but he knew about
Manolo.

“
Well,
I’ve got it figured within twenty people,” Dave said. “I’ll get out
before Trudy gets here. I’m going back to Fortuna. There were a
hell of a lot of trees knocked down in the storm. They’ll only hold
the orchids a little while before they get into the ground and
everything’s lost. We’ve moved several thousand plants to nearby
trees. Most of them will be Okay.

“
Helmut
has to be a major player – or one of two or three major
players.”

“
Sure
bet! She’s on Orison’s and Rasmussen’s corporation for twenty five
percent,” Clint said. “She’s one of three or four in on it. There’s
still a connection who’s right here in Bocas now, so it’s one of
the family. Trudy’s the only one I can say it isn’t with any
certainty.”

“
And you
could be wrong, in which case she’s not only a major player, she’s
THE major player in this game,” Judi warned.

“
There is
that!” Dave agreed. Manny nodded.

“
No one’s
who they seem,” Manny added, to which all of them
nodded.

“
But none
of them seem to be anything,” Clint pointed out. They all agreed
with that one, too.

Judi looked thoughtful, then said, “This Olga
or Frieda or whatever seems to be something.”

“
She
seems to be something else!” Dave shot back. They laughed and he
left.

Trudy was coming in as Dave left. They all
greeted her and told her what they planned. She agreed and said
that Orison had called her and told her his lawyer wanted to speak
to her about the corporation he and Rasmussen were part of and the
fact that, though she probably didn’t know about it, she had
inherited a part of another corporation Donald was on with
them.

She told them her lawyer and her detective
had told her about it and had done something or other to guarantee
she would be protected in any business deals. All she wanted was to
get out of all that business stuff. She had inherited millions and
didn’t have any need or use for more.

“
Manny
told me to act like Wanda with their lawyers and anyone from them I
didn’t already know. Stupid as dirt. I’m all ‘Aw, gee whillikers!
REALLY?! Oh gosh and golly! What’s going on? I’m so conFUSED by all
this BIS-nis stuff and have to rely on you pre-fess-ee-ohn-als to
get me through it all!’ with them.”

“
Which
will mean they’ll descend on you like buzzards on a dead racoon,”
Clint said. They all giggled. The lawyers would come in on the
afternoon flight from Panamá City if the airport was still
open.

“
Hi,
Clint! Hi, Judi!” Trudy cried from her table at Bongos (where she
had planned to have them accidentally meet when she took the lawyer
there). “Come on and join us! This is Bill Joiner from the states.
He’s a dual citizen with Panamá. I know how that works because I’m
a dual citizen with the US and Switzerland. He’s a lawyer my
father’s doctor and lawyer sent here to talk about all that
corporation stuff you told me about.

“
I should
wait with all that kind of stuff until I get back to the states,
shouldn’t I?” She batted her eyes innocently.

“
Uh, the
businesses are right here in Panamá,” Joiner protested. “We have to
make all the legal papers here.”

“
Oh,
darn!” She pouted.

“
You
can’t do anything except freeze everything until the murder of your
husband is solved,” Judi said like she was explaining to a three
year old. “You don’t know if you’re making a deal with the very
ones who killed him, otherwise.”

“
But Mr.
Joiner wasn’t even HERE!”

“
Mr.
Joiner simply records the deal and makes up the legal papers and
such things,” Clint said condescendingly. “The deals are made with
the corporations. That’s why we had you make your legal claims on
the corporations. These things are too often corrupt schemes in
Panamá. The laws are different here than back in the states and in
Switzerland.”

“
Oh. I
see. I guess.

“
Isn’t
the fish really GOOD here? Gisela said it was good and I tried it
and it really IS!”

“
The
lobster, too,” Judi said. “Oh, hell! I’ll be SO glad when they can
get some Balboa in! That’s the only thing the storm did that gets
me pissed!”

“
We’re
just on our way to The Lemon Grass for some Thai food,” Clint said.
“Don’t make any agreements with anyone now. It has to
wait.”

“
Okay. I
already promised Manny I wouldn’t. He said to listen to whatever
and he would have his own lawyers advise me – and they wouldn’t
even charge me anything for it! Can you believe that?! A LAWYER who
doesn’t charge for something!? Like, Wow!”

Joiner looked like he could bite through
twenty penny nails, but was trying to stay cordial. He wished them
a good night. When they talked with Gisela a minute and were going
down the steps they heard Trudy saying, “But I PROMISED Manny and
then Clint that I WOULDN’T so I WON’T EVER! If you make a PROMISE
it’s a PROMISE and your word is ALL you have in life that defines
YOU! My mother always said that to me and my sister, Wanda.”

They giggled. They hoped she didn’t overdo it
too far.

The Lemon Grass had some excellent curried
pork and rice. They had a good meal and were enjoying a glass of
wine when Trudy came in to sit at the table and break into
giggles.

“
Joiner
could strangle me with the greatest glee!” she finally said. “He
was warned that Wanda was stupid as a stump, but didn’t know it’s
apparently a family trait. I never got one thing he was saying
right! Gracie Allen lives!

“
All the
while he had to act like he was having a good time with such an
intelligent and beautiful girl.”

She giggled again.

“
I like
doing that to most lawyers,” Judi said. “Frustrate the holy living
hell out of them!”

“
I just
hope I didn’t overdo it. I was having such fun I got in deeper and
deeper. He was looking at me in a funny way, so I said I haven’t
been this drunk in years! Her must think I’m an idiot! That seemed
to explain it to him. The bimbo is more bimbo-y when she’s had a
few too many.”

“
I think
Orison and Rasmussen will decide they have to come here,” Clint
said. “They’ll know you were putting him on.”

“
So why
come here?” Judi asked. “Won’t they think they’ve been had and had
better leave it for awhile?”

“
They’ll
have to know if maybe we know some of the things we DO know.
They’ll have to know WHY the act.”

Judi and Trudy nodded at that. Clint did
wonder why some of this was happening. It seemed extreme.

Why the hurry? Wouldn’t people normally wait
awhile after a normal death, much less a murder?

“
Clint?
Manolo here,” greeted Clint when he got up in the morning and was
having coffee on the deck. “Got a bit of a flash for
you.”

“
Yo?”

“
Orison
went with a local girl – paid – last night, got a bit drunk and
turned on with a bit of local pot and ran his mouth before he got
mugged on his way home. Rasmussen is at the clinic now trying to
find out what happened to something or other. It’s
missing.”

“
What?”

“
I don’t
know. I know Rita, the girl, and she said he was bragging he had
made ten million dollars today. He had some kind of medallion or
something. Maybe that’s what Rasmussen is so worked up
about.”

“
What
significance? Got any ideas?”

“
She said
he had a thing on a chain around his neck. Something like a gold
coin with a horse on one side and a trophy of some kind on the
other. She doesn’t know if it was a locket or just a solid
coin.”

“
And they
were into fixing races. It may mean nothing or it may mean one hell
of a lot. Thanks, Manolo. I can maybe use it in some way. I’ll have
to go slow and fish for a clue or two.”

They chatted, then Clint called Sergio to
have him find what was claimed as missing in the police report when
they reported the mugging.

Judi waved at him from her deck. He waved
back and headed into town to see if he could “accidentally” run
into Joiner somewhere. He wanted to know if maybe Joiner knew
anything about the mugging.

Joiner was having breakfast on the porch at
the Laguna Hotel. Clint waved and got a wave in return, along with
a quick sour look. Friend Joiner did NOT want to see him this
morning.

He went over to say he’d talked with Trudy
last night and she was, for her, disgustingly drunk. What had she
been drinking? Tequila? Or was that after she left him.

“
She
wasn’t exactly drunk when she left, but she was a long way from
cold sober,” Joiner said.

“
She
starts out sounding normal, but gets to be a real pain in the ass
when she’s had a few. She usually gets downright silly and can’t
connect anything you say to anything you mean. You want to smack
her.

“
She’s
really decent enough sort when she’s sober. If I’d known about you
I would’ve warned you to tell her you don’t believe in drinking
more than a glass of wine with dinner. She’ll usually go along with
that.

“
Night
turned into a disaster, huh?”

Joiner shook his head and got a little
chummier. “I was fairly sure she was putting me on, but she
wouldn’t go that far if she was thinking. She’s the type who lets
her mind turn off when she’s been drinking, I guess.”

“
There’s
a reason for it. She did it to ... forget some things since she was
a little girl.”

“
Yes. Dr.
Rasmussen says he thinks she was probably sexually abused by
someone when she was eight or nine.”

Oh? What happened to the confidentiality that
Rasmussen was so strong on? And that wasn’t Trudy anyhow.

“
He told
you that before you came here?”

“
No, of
course not. I called him last night and he said he’d heard she
could get a bit radical in some ways when she was drinking, which
was why he should have warned me not to let her drink much. He said
it was usually that she would get to hating men and blaming her
father for being such a tyrant, but she had done some silly and
stupid things before. Once.

“
Maybe
the murder of her husband has her a lot closer to the edge
now.”

“
It’s a
bad time to bring up this business crap. You’d think that
Rasmussen, of all people, would know that. Maybe you’ve done her
one hell of a favor in a way. Maybe this will be therapeutic and
let her release some of her tension.”

He looked a bit surprised, thought, and said,
“You know, I hope you’re right! She did seem unstable and to be
very badly confused. Maybe that’s why she didn’t seem to ever ...
connect with anything.”

Clint nodded. They’d dodged a bullet there!
She had overdone it, but it was all explained.

And Joiner had called Rasmussen. That might
lead to some very interesting reactions in very interesting
places!

“
There
was no gold medallion mentioned in the police report,” Sergio said.
“He said he lost some jewelry and his watch and a diamond ring plus
some gold chains and a hundred twenty in cash. I asked that they
watch the usual crowd to see if a gold medallion with a horse on it
showed up.

“
What do
we do if we find it?”

“
Offer
them ten bucks for it. Say it’s only gold-plated and isn’t worth
very much except for sentimental value or something.”

“
We have
... maybe you should call Manolo.”

Clint thought, then said he would probably be
able to get it faster and cheaper than the police. They wouldn’t
have to make a deal where the thugs got away Scot free. He called
Manolo, who said he’d have it in an hour or less. He’d heard about
the mugging and knew who it had to be. He’d scare them with it into
maybe knocking off the muggings for a time.