Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (78 page)

“
I wonder
what excuse they’ll use to come here?” Dave asked of no
one.

About ten in the morning a man and woman came
casually strolling from the interior part of the peninsula toward
Dave’s house. From the land side the boat could be seen. Armando, a
close friend, met them and chatted a minute. Dave had told him what
to say when they asked if anyone was home. They acted like they
were looking at the land for sale and had wandered onto Dave’s
property by accident.

“
Yes. Mr.
Dave is here. He came very early from Miramar.”

“
Oh? He
came in the dark? Isn’t that rather dangerous?” the woman asked. “I
know I would never attempt it! All those coral heads!”

“
He does
it many times. He knows the waters,” Armando said
off-handedly.

“
I
believe Mr. Faraday and Mr. Matthews are here with him?” she asked.
(“Oh? They wandered here accidentally and know who might be here?”
Manny asked. Clint smirked.)

“
No. They
went to Miramar probably. That is the boat of Mr. Manny. Mr. Clint
and Mr. Dave take him and his wife to Miramar when they wish to go
to David or Panamá.”

“
Faraday
was with them?” the man demanded.

“
How
would I know? No one was with him when he came this
morning.”

The woman gave the man a withering look and
said they’d better get back now – but could they speak with
Dave?

Armando shrugged and waved at the door, then
said he had to pick cacao and left. They went to the porch and to
the door to knock. Dave came to the door in his skivvies with his
hair rumpled after a short wait. He asked what they wanted.

“
We’re
trying to locate Mr. Matthews and Mr. Faraday,” the woman answered.
“We understand that they came here in Mr. Matthews’ boat last
evening.”

“
They
went to Miramar. Who wants to know?” Dave replied
shortly.

“
Oh,
we’re trying to locate them for some friends in California who lost
touch a couple of months ago when their computer crashed and erased
the e-mail addresses,” the man answered. “They were mostly old
family friends and didn’t communicate more than three times a year
so didn’t remember the addresses.”

“
I don’t
see how it would make any difference if the comp crashed!” Dave
replied. “Hell! The damned addresses are kept by the
server!”

“
Er, they
lost the list on the comp. They weren’t saved in the address book
on the web,” the man answered.

“
I
suppose they’ll be back in a couple of days. They never stay too
long,” Dave said. “They’ll go to Bocas. I’ll probably go back to
Bocas this afternoon or tomorrow.”

“
You
won’t wait here until they get back?” the woman asked.

“
Why in
the hell would I do that? They’ll drive to Almirante. One of the
reasons they went was to get the car back from the
shop.”

“
I see.
Maybe we’ll still be here when they return to Bocas. Thank
you.”

“
Er,
could I get some water?” the man asked. “I didn’t think we’d be
this long or I’d of brought some with me.”

“
I don’t
have drinking water, but I have juice,” Dave replied. “Come on in.
I have coffee, but it’s three days old. I can brew some. Damned
good. We get it up at Enel Fortuna.”

They went inside where there was obviously no
one else there – except maybe...?”

“
May I
use the bathroom?” the woman asked.

“
Through
the bedroom,” Dave said, pointing at the door. She went through.
Dave saw her slip out and to the stairs to the deck, up and back
down almost immediately to come back into the sala/kitchen. They
soon left, then Clint and Manny came back in from the forest.
They’d gone there as soon as the man and woman came to the
door.

“
Amazing!
They come here by accident, know about Manny and me, are suddenly
looking for us for some old friends in California! Didn’t ever
introduce themselves! How very damned rude!” Clint exclaimed. “Know
anything about them, Manny?”

“
I will
very shortly. I didn’t know you had friends in California that you
communicate with three times a year!”

“
Funny.
Neither did I!”

Dave and Manny gave him the finger. Manny
used Dave’s comp to contact people in the states. An hour later he
knew that Benny Larson and Maddy Preston were the visitors. She had
some class and he was a crud. They worked for a thug called Bernie
Barstrovich.

“
Clint?
I’m getting scared!” Judi cried when she called that evening at
eight thirty. “Some people are following me everywhere. I know
because you told me how to spot them.”

“
Stay
with other people. Don’t go anywhere alone. If anyone asks, you
think I went to David.” He gave her more instructions. Manny was
listening and got a very grim look on his face. When Clint rang off
he made a call. Clint didn’t want to know who it was to or what was
said.

Nothing much happened until around ten
o’clock when Clint got a call that Judi Lum was missing. He quickly
called her cell number and got the voice of Maddy Preston, who said
Judi was visiting.

“
Put her
on,” Clint said. “Why would you answer her phone?”

“
I was
just using it to make a couple of calls. Here she is.”

“
Hi,
Clint! How’s the David trip going? Any derumbes?” Judi asked. He
could hear background sounds, so it was on speaker.

(“I’ve got a problem.”)

“
Nothing
particularly serious. We weren’t detained anywhere like a time or
two before.”

(“Are you being held?”)

“
When
will you and Manny get back? You went to get his car. Is it
fixed?”

(“They’re asking about Manny’s car.”)

“
Yeah.
Maybe tonight or very early tomorrow morning. Just checking to see
if everything’s normal there.”

(“Are you in danger?”)

“
Well, as
normal as ever. I have to meet with the garden group at the Lemon
Grass in half an hour. I suppose they’ll be drinking a bit
much.”

(“I’m not sure. I’ll check back in less than
half an hour.”)

They said their goodbyes.

“
Is she
alright?” Dave demanded.

“
She
thinks so. They just wanted information about Manny’s car and when
it would be on the road. I told them we would be traveling tonight
into early morning. It will make it hard to identify the car in the
dark.”

Judi called ten minutes later. She was on her
way to the Lemon Grass. She’d played dumb and innocent for them.
They seemed to fall for it.

They decided to get a bit of sleep and see
what happened in the morning.

“
... the
Nissan Navaro. Both men in the car died. It fell more than forty
meters onto rocks. This makes fourteen deaths to date this year in
traffic accidents in Chiriqui.

“
The
weather seems to have caused several other serious automobile
accidents. The conditions on the road at the altitude of La Fortuna
will cause dense fog to collect over....”

Dave turned the TV off and raised an eyebrow
at Clint and Manny. Manny looked like he could bite through twenty
penny nails. Clint swore very colorfully. Manny made a contact on
the computer asking that whoever was out there looking for his car
to be identified – and who they worked for.

The three didn’t talk much. They drank a lot
of coffee in the next thirty five minutes when the reply came:
Andre Lacoste, French. Hans Krause, German. Both of them answered
to Bernie Barstrovich, who answered to someone in the states. Who
would be known in as short a time as possible.

“
Send a
message with them,” Manny ordered. “I won’t tolerate innocent
people getting caught up in this kind of crap!” He dropped the
connection and sighed deeply.

They waited awhile until Manny got a call on
his cell phone. It was a report that the caller was driving in La
Fortuna and a car had gone over at exactly the same spot where the
car went over last night! The three people riding in the car died
exactly like those others!

“
Gawkers
who didn’t pay attention to the sharp curves up there, I suppose,”
Manny replied. “Some people will steer directly at a spot that
someone else points to. My father had several accidents in Ohio
doing just that.”

He rang off and swore. He didn’t want to ever
have to do that kind of thing again. It might tell whoever was
after him that he was, indeed, living in Bocas del Toro, Panamá.
That put his family at risk.

“
I’ll let
it be known that I contacted Marko to tell him about the people
asking about him here and that some innocent people died because of
that,” Clint said. “I’ll send it to the coded site. They get that
all the time. It won’t look like you’re here – but you got royally
pissed when innocent people got caught in it.”

They agreed to that. Clint would go to
Chiriqui Grande with some Indio friends and would go back to Bocas
from there.

“
I sent
the message to the coded site and backdated the copy,” Clint
reported. “It went out at eight twenty one thirty three according
to the copy in ‘sent’ files. I’ll go to town a bit later so they
can check.”

“
Who’ll
check?” Dave asked. “Aren’t the bunch of them dead?”

“
I
suppose Maddy’ll check. She did before. She knows how to get in and
out and how to fiddle with the comp.”

He chatted a few minutes, then handed Obilio
his phone. They may be able to tap into his calls and Judi’s – but
not into every passing Indio’s! They went to Don Chicho’s and had a
good tasty lunch. Benny Larson was lounging around by the palacio
where he could keep an eye on Clint. Clint assumed Maddy Preston
was at his house checking his comp. He gave her plenty of time to
finish before he hailed a taxi to take him home.

His traps showed Maddy checking his comp. She
didn’t leave any clues to show she’d been there. She was good!

An hour later Clint went over to Judi’s. She
said she saw Maddy go into the house just the way Clint said she
would. She felt evil, so managed to be coming out of her house when
Maddy left. She was just coming from the door when Judi passed and
called “Hello!” to her. Maddy said she had come to speak with
Clint, but he wasn’t home. They chatted like old friends as they
walked toward town. Judi said she usually took a taxi, but felt
like she needed the exercise today. Maddy could hardly refuse to
walk with her.

Clint went by and waved. That seemed to make
Maddy nervous for some reason. Judi hid a giggle.

“
Well, I
guess I’ll call Manny. I told him I’d call him when I knew she’d
checked things out,” Clint said. “I suppose he wants to be sure no
one suspects he’s here anymore.”

He called Manny to report. Manny said he’d
just found who was behind it in the states. A mobster he’d cut the
drug supply from. Clint knew Manny never had any truck with drugs
and would stop them if he could. He would send a very strong
warning to the dealers and their higher-ups that involving innocent
people in their violent schemes anywhere in the world would be
reported to him. He would put an end to it. If the only way to make
it work was to put an end to them, so be it. Clint didn’t think
much about it until there was a report that Maddy and Benny had a
boating accident. He called Manny to ask why, seeing it was settled
already.

“
Two
innocent men died because they identified the wrong car to be hit,”
Manny said.

Clint didn’t care for the method. He also
knew it was the only thing those people would understand. It was
what Manny was trying to stay away from.

“
So now
the message is as clear as it can be,” Clint said. “We have to live
with what we have to live with.”

“
Exactly.”

Killer
Show

“
It’s
should be a killer show,” Dave, Clint’s weird author/musician
friend said. “You know Bastimento Joe. He’ll do some Caribbean
stuff, I’ll do some light rock and folk, Paul will do
The Dead
and Neil Young stuff, JB can do
her material, Curtis and Rob ... and anyone who wants to do an open
mike act. This kind of thing should be really good with the
tourists. They’re sick to death of salsa and rap. If the
restaurants would stick to Marco Antonio and that kind of thing
we’d bomb. With what’s offered we can’t miss.”

“
In the
park?” Judi Lum, Clint’s neighbor asked.

“
The new
place by Bongos. They want to establish a live music format and
have seen salsa and Latino fail. People hear it all day. They don’t
want that kind of music in a restaurant.”

“
We’ll be
there,” Clint promised. “Start at...?”

“
Seven
thirty-ish.”

Clint got a kick out of seeing a seventy year
old rock performer. You’d think it would be a travesty, but Dave
seemed able to pull it off if he didn’t stay too long. This kind of
show would let each of them perform a couple of numbers in
rotation. Like a musical variety show.

He wanted to try the food there, anyhow.

The place
had a decent if not large crowd when the show started. People
passing could see the act and came in so the place filled to
capacity in an hour. The food was good. Curtis had just finished
his signature song,
It’s Hotter Than a Steam Bath Down Here
. He wrote it when he had the Tropical
Rangers. Rob came up to do a Dead number, JB did a couple, then
Dave did Bob Seger’s
Night Moves
. It
was always popular and they called for an encore. He did an old
Pink Floyd number,
Free Four
, then
a CCR number. He begged off until later when people asked for
specific numbers he did. He joined Judi and Clint at their
table.