Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (60 page)

Clint wondered if he would feel guilty for
setting those snobs up.

Nah!

Clint went back to the police station where
Gonzalez said there was some kind of delay. One of the passports
was traced to an Amanda Lesley whose real passport was being
checked at the moment. The other didn’t have a passport from
anywhere. He was thought to be a most wanted criminal in
California.

They went across the street to a café and had
coffee and empanadas, then returned. It seemed that Amanda Lesley
was wanted in Panamá for two or three murders! She would be sent
directly there in chains! Frank Lourdes wasn’t yet clearly
identified. It was possible he would be deported directly to
California, but the process could take months.

“
Send him
to Panamá with her. They ARE here together. You have a quick
extradition there. Let them worry about the rest of the legal crap.
They won’t be in your bailiwick anymore.”

“
Excellent! They are together, we will see they stay
together! He can share her leg chains on the flight!”

They made crude jokes about the scum like
those two who tried to use Ecuador to hide from unconscionable acts
Clint went back to the hotel. Gonzalez was getting the arrest
warrant to grab Amanda and Frank.

“
Mr.
Faraday? Could you please come to the station?” Gonzalez requested.
Gonzalez had called him at the hotel.

“
What’s
up?” Clint asked.

“
We have
your Frank Lourdes. His real name is, apparently, Franklin Hatchel
Lindsay from California. He has a driving license issued from
California. He says his wife went crazy and tried to kill him. We
found him tied to the bed in the house with acid burns on his
genitals and cigarette burns on much of his body. This is the most
awful thing I have ever seen!

“
He
doesn’t know where she is. She left him there with food and water
on the table a few inches from where he could reach them, being
tied so tightly.”

Clint said he’d be right there. He wanted to
ask Frank a few pointed questions.

Frank was in no condition to answer
questions. He was deeply sedated in the hospital. At the station
Clint looked at the digital pictures of the scene. Frank would
definitely never know sex again and would be horribly scarred all
over his body. There were deep cigarette burns on his face, chest,
arms and torso.

“
What do
we do with him now?” Gonzalez asked. “You warned that this kind of
thing might happen, but I didn’t ever believe anyone could so
cruel. I don’t understand it at all – and don’t want
to!”

“
You have
the deportation order?”

“
Of
course. We made the arrest on the warrant.”

“
Change
the destination to California and pack him off,” Clint said. “He
committed far too many crimes to be given other consideration of
any kind. There IS a standing order for deportation. It’s for no
passport, not for criminal acts here. They won’t bother changing
the destination. It’s where he would be sent for the passport
charges.

“
Gonzalo,
if you knew his story you’d still feel nothing but contempt for
him. What’s happened to him is half of what he had
coming.

“
Now I
have to find where Amanda is. She’s the one I’m really after. You
can see by this why I want her totally out of circulation
forever.”

“
I think
if I see her on the street I will shoot her on general principles.
She is gone. She left him there to die slowly of starvation with
food inches from his reach. She isn’t possessed by a demon, she IS
a demon! I think the bullet will have to have a silver cross on the
point and be blessed by a priest!”

“
I’m not
religious, but I wouldn’t take chances in this case!”

“
Demons
are very real, Clint.”

“
I’m
beginning to believe it!”

“
She took
a bus to Peru yesterday morning,” Gonzalez reported. “The doctors
said Lourdes would have died in no more than thirty-six more hours.
He would have been far better off had he done so.

“
I don’t
know if you can trace her farther from there. She rode the bus to
Frontera at the border and got off, saying she had decided she
didn’t want to leave Ecuador. She will have gone along a distance,
then walked into Peru.

“
I spoke
with a Felicia Bondi who rode with her on the bus. She said Aimie
was very personable and that everyone on the bus liked her. She
bought sodas and cookies for everyone and gave all the children
little gifts. She gave a pregnant girl advice and fifty dollars to
be sure she had the best doctors. They thought she was another
Mother Teresa in disguise!”

“
She can
be very likable,” Clint agreed. “I think I can trace her. She
doesn’t know I know a thing or two.”

More
Countries

Machu Pichu is quite a place. Clint had never
been there, wanted to see it, and went there just because it was as
likely a place as any she would go. He spent two days there and
gathered some information. He called Bocas regularly. Manolo
reported that Lindsay was sent to California and that there were
pictures of Amanda all over Peru with a “Wanted, dead or alive –
preferably dead” caption.

“
Preferably dead?” Clint asked.

“
They
don’t say that, but it’s pretty clear. They don’t want to have to
deal with trials and such. Costs too much time and
money.

“
Have you
considered that Amanda doesn’t have a whole lot of cash left? All
the money she could have gotten is in frozen accounts. She tried to
use her Visa card in Peru and it was refused.”

“
I’m
counting on that bit. I’m wondering if she has the wherewithall to
get along without money.”

They talked about various other things, then
Clint called Manny and spoke with Judi and Dave. He told them about
Frank. Dave said he figured something on that order, but something
that would take more than forty eight hours.

He went to the police in four larger towns,
but she hadn’t used a passport anywhere. He got an idea and went to
Frontera where a woman of her description with a Peruvian cedula
had taken a bus into Venezuela. Direct express to Caracas.

Oh, well.

Caracas is a bustling modern city – which
Clint hated. He was most definitely NOT a city person anymore. He
didn’t waste time. He went directly to immigration and explained
it. He had a copy of the bus ticket with the name on her cedula,
Irena Rauz D. He also had Gonzalez fax him a copy of the Peruvian
wanted poster. The clerk talked with Gonzalez a moment, then looked
sick as he asked, “This is true? Not some TV fantastic
violence/horror movie?”

“
Unfortunately, it’s true. I MUST get that crazy woman off
the streets before she goes on another rampage!”

“
I will
certainly do everything in my power to assist you in that! Dios
mio! She is El Diablo!”

“
I wish I
could argue the point.”

He went out and to the bus station to see if
anyone recognized her when she got off the bus. A porter looked at
her picture and said he was sure it was her with very black hair
cut shorter. She was also not quite so heavy. She only spoke
French, but his mother was from Haiti and he spoke enough French to
communicate.

That was very important information. She was
now posing as French, had cut and dyed her hair and was losing
weight.

His next stop was at every hotel the bus the
porter put her on passed. She hadn’t checked into any of them.

Next, the restaurants and bars in the area.
She possibly had been in the Chez Paris Restaurante two night ago
with a dark man who also spoke French. He was very wealthy and
lived somewhere in the closer area because he was at the
restaurante every Saturday night, usually with a different woman
each time. All they knew was that he was called “Liam” by the women
and waiters. She wasn’t as goodlooking or young as most of his
girls, but she DID speak perfect French.

So. Dye your hair and cut it and lose weight,
then pick up a rich local.

Clint decided to try to find “Liam” as a way
to find Amanda. According to the waiter he talked to Liam drove a
dark blue Mercedes. New every year.

That might work! He went to the dealer and
said he wanted to look at a model like his friend drove.

“
Your
friend is?”

“
Er,
Liam. That’s all we every call him. He buys a new Mercedes every
year, though.”

“
Ah! Liam
L’Estrade! Very much the proper gentleman! He lives in The
Portals?”

“
Yes!
That’s Liam! A great gentleman and a sure hit with the
ladies!”

He looked through a few circulars and at a
car of a different model than Liam’s because Liam’s were
special-ordered every September. He said he’d be back in a day or
two.

The Portals. That would definitely be a
development or something such. Suburban.

Wrong! It was a condominium complex close to
centro!

Clint checked in at the lobby office and said
he wanted to speak with Liam L’Estrade on an urgent business
matter. He only knew that he had a unit in the condos.

“
Mr.
L’Estrade has three units in the end section. A, B and C. I will
call him and announce you are here to speak with him?”

“
Please,”
Clint replied. “It is an urgent matter.”

He waited while the clerk buzzed Liam’s units
several times. There was no answer. The clerk checked the list and
said that Mr. L’Estrade’s car was there. He never left except in
the car. Something must be very wrong!

“
Oh, my
God!” Clint cried. “Listen! We must go to his units and check! He’s
in great danger is why I’m here!”

The clerk called security and gave the two
officers keys to the condos. They went to ring and knock on all the
doors, but got no answer. In unit C there was a sort of muffled
crash inside. Clint demanded, “Open it! She’ll kill him!”

They opened the door and rushed in. L’Estrade
was in the bedroom tied to the bed with a duct tape gag across his
mouth. He wasn’t harmed otherwise that they could see. He’d managed
to knock the radio off the end table when he heard them at the door
with his foot that was partially worked loose from the tape.
Security called the police robbery unit, Clint talked with
L’Estrade. She had met him and seemed very nice. They had dinner
that she insisted on paying for. She said he wasn’t at all like
most men she knew and came back with him to the condo where
suddenly everything went black. He woke up on the bed like they
found him. His safe was opened and more than twenty five thousand
US dollars were missing.

He had a violent headache. He needed
something for it.

“
Did you
eat or drink anything after you got here?” Clint asked.

“
We had a
glass of wine. That’s all.”

“
You
don’t remember opening the safe?”

“
No ...
but ... I might have ... wanted to? For her to see the diamond
necklace?

“
I’m not
sure. I think she talked to me and I said there was ... she asked
if there was money or jewels in the house! ... I think.”

“
Scopolamine. I researched it when a friend told me that it
grew all over the place in Bocas. It was used as a truth serum at
times. Hypnotic. You lose any will to resist. You get a violent
headache and your memory of the time is very sketchy.

“
Is there
security here? Cameras?”

“
Yes!
They will show us out front!”

That was a stroke of luck!

“
My
diamonds!” he suddenly cried. “Are the diamonds there?”

They were still in a case in the safe. She
just wanted cash.

Clint went with security after talking with
the police to get a copy of the tape of Liam and Amanda entering
the front door. It was clear and professional. He made several
prints of her.

Okay. She wouldn’t be in this part of Caracas
anymore because it would be too easy for Liam to find her. Where
would she go?

One thing was certain. She would be easy to
identify now. He’d show her picture at the airport or other means
of leaving the city.

She had booked a flight to Rio. She paid cash
and had a passport. She was Edna Grimsworthy from Chicago. She had
left less than two hours ago. He radioed to Rio airport to have her
held for a false passport. An hour later she was grabbed when she
got off the plane and officials there were very deeply embarrassed.
She was Edna Grimsworthy, the fingerprints matched as did the ones
sent from the states. They faxed her picture and it was a woman who
looked like Amanda did now, but not too closely.

Clint spoke with her on the phone and learned
that a woman who looked a lot like her in a superficial way had
approached her in the airport. She said she was hiding from a
violent husband and knew there would be a picture to show him that
would make him think she was in Rio. He would definitely check the
airports and anyone who saw her on the surveillance tapes that were
never very clear in these places would think she was gone. The
people at the counter wouldn’t look at the passport very closely to
see the one buying the ticket wasn’t the same as on the
passport.

Clint thanked her. Dear little Amanda
wouldn’t think he’d find the ruse so easily – but she probably
didn’t know that Frank was discovered yet or that Peru had her face
splattered across the country on those “Wanted” posters. She didn’t
think of quite everything.