Clint Faraday Mysteries Collection B :This Job is Murder Collector's Edition (10 page)

Ann and Lila also got him alone to tell him
the same thing. All of them had noticed something and had acted in
a way not to scare all the others. It would be funny as hell if it
weren’t so serious.

There wasn’t much to be done with it getting
dark. They sat around to talk until they went to bed. Clint and
Obilio knew how to find the glow of a fire that was screened toward
the house and both noted the spot across the valley. Judi had seen
the reflection off a lens to binoculars, almost certainly.

Obilio said he knew how to get to that little
ledge from in back. They would leave before light from the back of
the house so they wouldn’t be seen. Matt would have the women
moving around the place to be seen and would dress so that he would
look like Clint at times. Mike wanted to go with them. Obilio said
he could go if he knew how to be quiet and how to move where he
wouldn’t be seen. He said he would surprise them all with what he
knew. Mark would go with Lila to talk with the bruja. They would be
seen a bit after daylight in plain sight of the watch ledge moving
along the path toward the place. Judi had Clint’s .22 pistol and
was an expert shot. She would know how to protect from certain
types of attack. She also knew a few tricks. She would surprise
hell out of any attacker who thought she was the helpless woman
type.

Clint and Obilio left before dawn, climbing
out of a rear window that couldn’t be seen from anywhere in the
area. They were soon on a covered path through the forest toward
the side and behind the ledge. Luis stepped from the forest ahead
of them two hundred meters from the house. Clint had as much as
forgotten he was there. He had watched the entire night.

“
Someone came to the loma there
(pointing at the little hill) perhaps an hour after midnight,” he
reported. “He did not come close. He stopped a moment, then
returned. I think he wanted to see if there were any lights in the
house or bodega. He was very large.”

Obilio told him it was a good thing to know.
He could go to the house and sleep a few hours. Clint and Obilio
went on. An hour later Obilio held up a hand. Clint stopped. They
were moving silently along and Obilio would have heard or seen
something. Mike made a snapping sign with his hands as though he
were snapping a twig. Obilio nodded and pointed ahead and slightly
to the left.

Mike slipped into the forest on that side.
Clint moved to stop him, but was too late. Obilio looked surprised,
then shrugged. He and Clint waited. A monkey made a “woo-woo” sound
ahead and Obilio again looked surprised and waved for Clint to come
along.

“
Perhaps to the right?” Obilio suddenly
said in a hissing whisper, surprising Clint this time. He was
waving to stop.

There was a “Thunk!” sound ahead, then Mike
stepped out about a hundred feet ahead and waved for them to come
on.

A big black man was unconscious behind a
large boulder. Mike had come up behind him, couldn’t get close
enough, moved away a bit and climbed a tree to make the monkey
call, then had come back down to come up behind the watcher when
Obilio had drawn him down to behind the boulder. He’d smacked him
with a good-sized rock. He would have a concussion at best.

Mike took a roll of duct tape from his carry
sack and taped the man’s hand and feet together, then taped his
mouth. It was a very professional type of tying.

They went on. Mike was surprising Clint and
Obilio with his knowledge and cool attitude. Clint wouldn’t have
expected that from his reaction to seeing Pablo’s mutilated
body.

They were still moving silently. Clint
couldn’t ask questions.

They went into a high valley and across the
quebrada to ascend the next mountain. Obilio soon had them moving
to the left. He motioned for them to stop and drew a short line in
the dirt, pointed to a large boulder and put a pebble next to the
line, then drew the line around it and motioned downward. He
pointed to Mike and the line. He then drew a line with a hook that
came to the same spot Mike would be and pointed to Clint. He
pointed directly left to a slight animal path. He pointed past the
turn Mike would take and to himself, nodded sharply and erased the
diagram in the dirt.

Clint moved to the path, Mike went to the
boulder path and Obilio went ahead.

Half an hour later Clint was to the left of
the ledge where there was a frond lean-to with a small fire with a
coffee pot on the rocks beside it that couldn’t be seen from the
house across the valley. Mike waved a white handkerchief one short
wave from just above.

There was no sign, otherwise, so they waited.
Ten minutes later Obilio strolled from the far side toward the
lean-to. Two men stepped out and asked him what he wanted. They
were both blacks and both pretty big.

“
This is comarca land and you are here.
I am council. I ask what YOU are doing here, not the other way
around!”

“
It’s none of your business!” one of
them snapped. He took a knife from his belt and started to advance
toward Obilio.

There was a shot. He dropped. Mike yelled,
“No movir! Movir y morir!” (Don’t move! Move and die!) The other
one stood perfectly still. Obilio picked up the knife the other had
and advanced toward the standing man. Mike and Clint came from
their places and watched.

“
I will ask the questions and you will
answer,” Obilio announced. “Who are you and what are you doing
here?”

The man shook his head and said nothing.
Obilio flipped the knife and there was a cut along the side of the
hood’s neck that was oozing blood.

“
Who are you and what are you doing
here?” he asked again.

The hood started to say something, then shook
his head again.

There was another flick of the knife. There
was a cut along the side of the hoods face that was a bit deeper
and was oozing more blood.

“
Who are you and what are you doing
here?” Obilio asked calmly.

The hood sobbed and said that he was Armand
Montaigne. He was watching the house across the valley for another
person. The dead man was Liam Costigne. He was just watching. They
didn’t know what it was about. The papaloi ordered them to come and
to watch. He was in Haiti. They would be turned into zombies if
they didn’t do as he ordered.

“
Who is the one back along the
trail!”

“
Aurelio Smith, from Colón. He is to
show is how to move here. There is also Antoin. Antoin is
black.”

This was asked in Spanish and answered in
bastard English, much like wadi-wadi.

“
Get your ass out of Panamá. You can
tell the police about your buddy here if you like. If not, the
people here will bury him and nothing will be known except he came
into the mountains and was never heard of again,” Clint said. “Is
the bruja involved?

“
The most important thing you can
answer is where is Maria Garza and is she alright?”

“
She is the woman they are after? I
don’t know anything except she has to answer questions from ...
some people in Haiti. I know nothing of any bruja. Perhaps Aurelio
spoke with her.”

Clint nodded. He warned the hood to get out
of Panamá again. Today.

Mike, Obilio and Clint turned away and went
back along the path without another word. Clint wanted to ask a lot
of other questions of Armand Montaigne, but realized it would be a
bad idea. It would also be more likely Aurelio Smith could answer
them faster and better.

But Aurelio Smith was gone.

“
Damn! I wanted to ask dear Aurelio a
thing or two!” Clint said.

“
Antoin. Aurelio probably isn’t black,”
Mike said.

Witch Connection?

“
She knows something, but will say
nothing other than that she sensed a little spell on someone. It
was not a dangerous spell, in itself. It was a way that the person
could be located anywhere or something,” Lila reported about her
interview with the bruja. “She is afraid, I think. That is a bad
sign.

“
A very big black man went to her with
another who was part black and not so large. Verna said that the
smaller one spoke in a strange language that was much like Ingles.
The black man spoke very good Spanish.”

Clint thanked her. That would be Aurelio
Smith and Antoin. Antoin would be a bit bigger than Aurelio. Every
little bit added to what they had to know.

Luis had gone to his finca and would return
before dark. It was late enough that he would be there in a few
minutes, probably, though he could travel easily enough with the
moonlight. It was clear this high on the mountain. Cori was cooking
a meal for them. Judi and Matt had been almost going crazy worrying
about them. Judi heard a shot and was afraid it wasn’t from any of
their guns. Ann was helping a woman who had been hurt when she had
fallen over a vine across the path below, partway between Luis’s
place and Obilio’s.

Clint asked about the vine. It was just a
vine that had fallen when the limb it was on fell. The woman was
carrying laundry to the stream and hadn’t seen it.

Clint remembered the witch had two visitors,
one not among those they’d seen. He would be the one with Maria. He
would be the one who got Antoin out. He would be the one who put a
vine warning trap across their path. He would be the one with
answers. He would be close.

In the morning they would find who that man
was and what he knew. Somehow. This was the comarca and Obilio
could get the people here to cooperate. They had very little fear
of the witch woman. She was more a medicine woman who knew a few
things about what was considered to be magic here.

They had to make a plan of sorts. This was a
long way from over. None of them knew what was going on, in
reality.

“
I want all the women to go back to
David in the morning and stay there among lots of other people.
Don’t anyone go anywhere alone,” Clint suggested. “We have to find
what’s behind it. We’re flying blind at this point. Murder is part
of it already, so don’t get to feeling safe. You’re
not.”

“
What makes you think that?” Mark
asked.

“
They would have taken Maria and would
be gone now. They wouldn’t be watching this house and us,” Judi
answered. “They think all of us or one of us or any combination
knows something.”

“
Somebody does,” Clint agreed. “The
problem is that the person or persons with information don’t know
what it is. We can spend awhile trying to figure what it could
be.

“
For instance, we know it has something
to do with Maria and very probably Pablo. If they’re hanging around
because of that they’ll go to David when you do. If they stay they
think I know something. I think only this character who went to the
bruja is still here. He would have gotten Antoin away because we
know he’s in it. He’ll probably know what it’s about. The others
didn’t.”

It would have to wait for morning. Clint
asked a few questions, but didn’t learn much. The phone was working
well enough that he could call out. He asked the police to check on
the ones whose names he knew. They had already checked them to an
extent. They were aliens who didn’t go to places tourists went and
they stated they were tourists at entry into Panamá.

Clint said they came as a group. He must have
information about the smaller black. There was reason to believe
that he may be the one who abducted Maria Garza. Five minutes later
he knew the man was Quentin LeMonde from Haiti, but had a passport
that said he was Denis Jaques from Jamaica, also. Both seemed to be
legitimate passports. It was under investigation, but could be used
as a means to detain him if and when that seemed advisable. There
was an Aurelio Smith and an Antoin Fontaine. Antoin was a very
large black man. Aurelio is not so large and is part black.
Moreno.

Samuel had called Sergio in Bocas and was
advised that Clint was quite often used as an investigator by the
Policia Nationál (a slight exaggeration. He had only worked with
the local police at Bocas Town – who were Policia Nationál! It was
true!) to great advantage. Samuel would cooperate to the extent it
was legal.

Okay. He knew the name(s) of the person who
went to the bruja.

“
Ever hear of a Denis Jaques in
Jamaica?” Clint asked the group. Cori said she might have met him.
If he was a slender man who spoke wadi-wadi all the time. He had
said something to Pablo at the fish market. Pablo said his name was
Quent or something such, so it was probably somebody
else.

Clint said he also used the name Quentin
LeMonde.

“
Do you remember anything at all he
said to Pablo?”

“
It was wadi-wadi, so I can come pretty
close. It was something about a woman named Claire and he was to
shut up about her or something. Pablo said he had never said
anything about her. He didn’t talk about something or other to
anyone at any time. I went on to the stall for fish and they talked
a minute. The fellow didn’t seem to be mad or anything. He just
said it wasn’t a good idea to speak about people like
Claire.

“
Oh, shit! I’m the one who’s supposed
to know something, aren’t I?”

“
It’s more than possible,” Clint
agreed. “If you’re the only one who met any of them. Maybe Pablo
introduced some of you to others he met on the street or
something?”

“
Well, he introduced Mark and me to
someone named Frank and someone named Eugene,” Mike said. “Maria
said some guy was a dangerous thief. I didn’t hear his name, but he
hung around a bar in Haiti near the docks. He was a big black with
dredlocks and a lot of gold chains.”