Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (62 page)

She could go anywhere on buses. Where would
she go?

To Rio. That would logically be a place she
wouldn’t go and she was being clever. Clint and Gordon would first
check all the bus stations. It would be a matter of talking to the
drivers and door attendants (there is almost always a boy at the
door to take suitcases, maletas and other packages and to see the
passengers had a seat – if any were available. On long trips no one
would want to stand. They would be looking for a gringo man of her
size and description. She had rather large breasts so would most
probably ... Clint looked over the list of suit and clothes sizes.
She would be disguised as a somewhat fat man. Most of the clothes
were L and XL. He found several receipts from local stores in the
trash can. She bought some shaving supplies so she would be
sporting a beard. She had sunglasses.

“
Okay.
We’re looking for a man about five seven, overweight, beard,
sunglasses. She went for the more obvious look because we would
think she wouldn’t do that if we found out she was posing as a
man.”

“
I agree,
but she’ll still do something clever,” Gordon warned. Clint nodded
agreement.

They looked around the rooms once more and
found nothing new except some magazines and, behind the nightstand,
a pass to Clubo Diferente.

“
What the
Sam hell is Clubo Diferente?” Clint asked. Gordon shrugged and took
out his cell phone to make a call to a taxi driver friend who told
him it was a lesbian hangout just off Centro. Clint picked up the
magazines. They would be the type that would probably appeal to
lesbians. He smirked at Gordon.

“
What?”

“
She
probably made both of us at Gigi’s. She planted the shaving and
sunglasses receipts so we’d look for exactly what that get-up would
suggest. She did something to be sure you would find this place.
It’s become a game with her now. She’s completely over the edge –
but we knew that.

“
She’s
wearing a suit, very little make-up, has her hair cut in a mannish
way and is going as a lesbian in those suits. A woman wearing a
man’s suit, if she’s got boobs, always looks top-heavy and slightly
odd.

“
She
bought suits. A man would probably not wear a suit on a bus trip.
They’re casual here and suits are hot and
uncomfortable.”

“
Just the
way a lesbian playing the male role would look. She really is
damned clever!”

“
Cunning.
Let’s go find which bus a lesbian of her description took. She’ll
be traveling with a companion to throw us off.”

Gordon nodded and grinned.

Isabel Leeds and her dear friend, Gloria
Sorento, had taken a bus to Frontera just that morning. Clint could
see enough from the surveillance shots that he could make a very
good picture of what she looked like. Gloria was a small dark woman
in her early thirties, very attractive.

Bus CO-1472. It wouldn’t arrive in Frontera
until 8:30 PM. Clint would be there, but he knew damned well she
would get off the bus a bit before then. Maybe he could find where
and be waiting for her to arrive at another checkpoint.

Clint booked a flight to Campanero, the
closest town to Frontera with an airport. It was a small Cessna and
cost a lot more than it should. He got there in plenty of time to
take a bus to Frontera with an hour and a half to spare. He got a
good meal and had a beer, then went to the station when the bus
came in.

She got a call on her cell phone and got off
the bus in Pedrigal, a town about an hour away from Frontera by
bus. Her companion came on. Clint watched her get off the bus and
look around. He managed to stay out of sight. She went through the
station and out the front to look everywhere. She was very
obviously looking for someone specific.

Him and/or Gordon.

After wandering around for twenty minutes or
so she made a call on her cell phone, then went back inside and got
a ticket for another bus. Clint waited until she went to the ladies
room and found that she had a ticket for the late bus to La
Navidad, fifteen or twenty kilometers back.

He went back to his spot and watched as she
went to the cantina and ate a small meal, chatted with a woman for
a few minutes, then went to the port to get on her bus.

Clint waited, then went to the closest
fleabag hotel. He’d wait. She was being clever. It was fairly
certain they would come back to get on with the trip.

But when?

In the
morning Clint had a large if not very tasty breakfast and four cups
of excellent coffee. He read over the local
Prensa
, then strolled around town for an hour or so. A
large bus went by toward the checkpoint. A direct bus. It suddenly
occurred to him that she could probably get the direct bus from
anywhere along the route and go on into Brazil.

“
Oh FUCK!
She’s outsmarted me again!” he muttered under his breath and headed
for the checkpoint. She and her companion had gone through on the
2:00 bus. There was one every two hours. She had used a temporary
visa and a tourist card.

“
No way!
She’s a foreigner!” Clint exclaimed. “She’s not from the Americas,
she’s from France and Switzerland! She can’t get a tourist card
with a visa!”

Armando looked up the record and showed Clint
she got a legal lost passport document from the French embassy –
which meant she could be issued a visa on a tourist card.

“
But her
passport that she supposedly lost was a fake!” Clint snarled. “How
in HELL did she convince the French Embassy to renew a fake
passport?!”

Armando shrugged and said, “It costs two
thousand US dollars, I understand. My part was legitimate.” He put
his palms up and shrugged again.

“
Well,
Venezuela should be damned glad to be rid of her. She killed at
least two people here.”

That shook Armando. A little. Clint handed
Armando his passport and said he would have to follow her. Armando
shrugged and stamped him out of Venezuela, he walked through the
security room and got his stamp to be in Brazil. Lucky for him he
had everything in his backpack and didn’t have to go back to the
hotel for it.

Not that he would have left anything in that
hotel.

He found she had taken a bus to Colónia. She
could get a bus there for anywhere in Brazil. It took him an hour
to discover she had already taken a bus to Cacao. Her companion
went on to Rio. She carried a Brazilian passport and was from
Rio.

“
Hah-ah!”
he muttered. “This time I won’t fall for that.”

He got a map and traced where she would most
likely go from Cacao (So he would know where she would NOT
go!).

Nowhere. It was a little town north near the
Colombian border.

Now it
was,
I
thought that she thought that I thought that she thought she’d fool
me into going to a specific place. I therefore stopped the “I
thoughts” one back
.

Which was as good a guess as any. It was
fifty-fifty.

Clint went to the station and talked with
several Indios from Cacao. They said you could get a bus on the
main road that took you into Escondido, Colombia. The roads weren’t
good for the first hundred kilometers or so, but you met the main
road on to Bogota then and it wasn’t so bad.

Bogota would be the one place she had to go
from there. She couldn’t stop anywhere in those jungles where she
could change her route. When Gloria didn’t see him at the Frontera
station she figured she had time to work it so he wouldn’t know
where she went.

Well, that was true! Clint went back to the
station and booked a private flight to Bogota. She would think she
had him outfoxed on this one because she had gotten away with the
night bus bit. She would still get off the bus before Bogota. All
he had to do was figure out where.

She had said something about Colombia once.
The same time she told him about the pink house in Ecuador. Near
... Cali. In the mountains.

He got his evil smirk again and changed the
flight to Bogota to Cali. He would find her place there and be able
to yell, “Surprise!” to her when she came in.

He called Manny while he was waiting to catch
him up to date. He would tell the others what was going down. He
then called Trudy to ask if she knew about the place in Colombia.
She’d heard there was a small cabin in the mountains there, but
didn’t know where. George was there so she asked if he knew about
it. He and Wanda had gone there once ten or so years ago. It was
maybe sixty or eighty kilometers west by southwest of Cali. They
flew in in a helicopter. He didn’t remember any towns or anything
close – which might have changed in ten years. That was a help.

His plane was ready so he went through the
checkpoint and boarded. The plane stopped in Bogota to refuel, then
they headed on to Cali. He checked into the Royal, had a good meal,
bought an area map, then went to a bar to relax. He met a woman
from Denmark, they got along well. It was, finally on this trip, a
good night.

In the morning he took out his map and drew a
triangle with the tip in Cali and arms extended for eighty-five
kilometers. It was from SW to a bit more than WSW. There weren’t
any towns in the covered area big enough to be on the map. A relief
map showed that there were a number of places in the mountains that
could well hold a house. There was a river, which made it one of
three places.

She would take two days or more to arrive. He
had time to find the place. He would go to the farthest spot first.
He could rent a helicopter. Trudy had given him access to whatever
funds he needed. She wanted Amanda caught.

The helicopter pilot was an older gringo
named Sam. He knew the entire area like the back of his hand and
knew it had to be one of the places in two spots. One, the one he
thought it would be because no one ever went there except the Indio
family taking care of the place, would almost certainly be what he
was looking for.

They landed on a flat grassy spot two hundred
meters from the picturesque cabin. An Indio with his little son and
daughter came to ask what they wanted. Clint asked if this was the
Lesley house.

Yes. Lawrence Lesley. He was the one who said
they could live in the house when he wasn’t there if they would see
that everything was safe and the place was kept clean and in good
repair.

It was that! It looked like it was brand
new!

“
Is Mr.
Lesley coming? Should we move?”

“
I think
Amanda is coming, but she won’t stay. Mr. Lesley died and his
daughter-in-law owns the place now. I believe she’ll keep the
agreement you have with Mr. Lesley.”

“
This
Amanda is the daughter-in-law?”

“
No.
She’s the daughter who killed him.”

Didn’t phase him. He nodded and said, “It had
to happen. He treated them horribly.”

“
He was
not a very nice man. Trouble is, she killed some other people in a
very cruel and inhuman way. She’s a homicidal maniac.”

He nodded again. He’d seen that in two of the
children. One girl and the boy. The girl would be the one with the
guts to do it. The boy was a bit too easy.

Clint liked this man. He didn’t play the
silly games most people played. He knew Lawrence was doomed by his
sordid personality and spotted the insanity in Amanda long before
there was any noticeable symptom.

“
I’ll
stay here to capture her and take her back to the police in
Panamá.” Clint said.

“
I think
you won’t want us to move. I think you are a good man I will
like.”

“
And I
already like you,” Clint agreed, then to Sam, “Do NOT, under any
circumstances, let her know I’m here.”

“
She
‘Killed some people in a very cruel and inhuman way,’ huh? I don’t
think I want to know her.”

“
You the
only one who comes out here?”

“
In the
chopper, yes. I’ll be booked for a week and can’t take any others
on. She can come on the river from the camp a couple kilometers
down that way.” He pointed his chin SE.

“
Call me
when she gets here?” He nodded and took the card with Clint’s
number. He warned that there was no signal much of the time out
this far. Clint thanked him and paid him. He left.

“
Well!
Let’s see the house!”

The Indio, Julio Juarez, showed him the
bedroom they weren’t using and said he could have whichever one he
wanted. Clint said it was perfect.

Julio introduced his wife as Estrelita and
his daughter, Sylvia, and his son, Juan. He was immediately
accepted as almost a part of the family and they became fast
friends immediately. Juan was curious about this strange gringo
person and followed him everywhere. The house had water from higher
on the mountain run through PVC pipe to give a good pressure in the
shower and kitchen. Estrelita made a very tasty stew with things
grown on the place. Clint didn’t ask what the meat was, but thought
it was probably pork.

The shower was cold, but he was used to that.
These Indios were as clean as his Indio friends in Panamá and as
communal (or more) in lifestyle. When he went to the shower Juan
and Julio joined him. They sat on the verandah overlooking the
river to watch the sunset. There were no clouds to the east of the
mountains so nightfall was rather sudden. It went into twilight and
to night in no more than two or three minutes. Julio explained that
when there were white clouds to the east the reflection would make
the light fade slowly.