Clint Faraday Mysteries Collection B :This Job is Murder Collector's Edition (20 page)

Dave gave Clint the finger. “Clint should
have told you that Dodson’s been dead a few decades. Maduro’s out
of Boquete. You might have talked to him.

“
Did you find any pirate
treasure?”

“
No. Just some pirates,” Moises said
seriously. “They claimed to be here studying medicinal
plants.”

“
Maybe they were. There’s a lot of
that.”

“
No plants, no camera?”

“
No camera?” Dave said.
“Bullshit!”

“
My sentiments exactly,” Clint
agreed.

It was getting late enough that they would
head back to Cusapín. Maybe they could find out what the hell was
going on. It most certainly wasn’t about any medicinal plants. The
very first thing any legitimate researcher would do was to talk
with the medicine men and women in the area.

They discussed the two awhile, then Clint and
Moises headed back toward Cusapín while Dave and Andres moved on
along the beach a few hundred meters and went into the forest.

The socalled medicinal plant scientists
hadn’t stopped in Cusapín. “They’ll probably go back to where they
left or a little farther along the beach. They won’t expect us to
be there,” Clint mused. “Maybe I’ll want to go out there in the
morning – say half an hour before daylight?”

Moises grinned broadly and nodded. He made
arrangements for Clint to be taken out about half an hour before
daylight. They would look for the next tall nispero and Clint would
be in the forest nearby to see what he could see.

What?

Clint packed his Glock with his lunch and
some coffee in a little backpack and had Kyle, a gringo friend who
was there for the surf to take him along the beach to about three
quarters of a kilometer past where they found the beached boat.
There was a tall nispero back a short way and another a few hundred
meters past that that was leaning at a noticeable angle. Kyle left
him with a good luck wish and headed back. Clint went up the beach,
carefully erasing his footprints with a leafy branch. He went into
the lush forest far enough to be able to climb a small hill to
where he could see the water without being seen. He expected they
would be there fairly early to be able to be away before the Indios
could walk that far along the beach (which would be a serious
underestimation of the Indios). Judging from how long that boat was
in sight before they came out of the forest, he could figure they
went to the nispero.

What could they be after? As Moises had said,
there was zero chance there was anything like pirate treasure along
this stretch for another hundred miles.

It was about forty minutes later when the
Century came slowly along the beach just out far enough to be sure
there was enough water for the motor. Clint watched as they came
along. There were two middle-aged people in the boat with the two
from yesterday. He used the digital camera on zoom to get pictures
of all of them. He would take more. The 2 gig card would hold more
than a thousand pictures at highest resolution.

They came in to the beach just below the big
nispero and drug the boat up the beach far enough to where it would
stay. Clint was far enough away that he could only hear a snatch of
conversation now and then. They said something about Ida and Harry
not coming back to the hotel. Valdez said they had seemed normal
enough when they looked at the spot yesterday afternoon. They
didn’t say anything about not coming out today, but maybe Ida was a
little upset about something her daughter said when she called her
yesterday morning.

After that, the bunch moved on into the
forest toward the nispero. Clint wanted to know if maybe Ida and
Harry’s bodies were somewhere back near that last beaching. They
were damned well not with Valdez and Zacharia when they headed back
toward Cusapin yesterday!

Clint eased down and moved silently along
toward the big tree. He knew how to move without being heard or
seen in these forests. The Indios taught him a few things about
that. He was near the tree in five or six minute, but it took the
other party almost half an hour to get there.

He came to a large boulder not more than a
hundred meters from the tree and climbed carefully up to lay where
he could see. The four were studying what looked like very old
documents and trying to find something or other about twenty meters
from the base. Zacharia said something about the rocks not being in
the right places and there was definitely no bottle in a crevice in
a rock. This wasn’t the one.

They headed back toward the boat.

Clint slipped down and was near the boat when
they got back to it. They moved very slowly compared to Clint so he
was able to find a spot where he could hear everything when they
got there. They came down onto the beach and were standing around
drinking coffee from a thermos and talking about when the
government papers would arrive. Zacharia said there was time. They
wouldn’t get in any hurry. Don’t trust anyone who wanted a lot of
money in a hurry. There were too many crooked schemes and somebody
who had to have that kind of money fast was probably up to no good.
Get the money in a hurry and get out of the country with it in a
bigger hurry. That was what she kept trying to tell Ida. Stop being
so impatient and don’t dump half a million dollars into the account
before more was known. Get the accord first, then worry about any
money not needed for food or whatever. Valdez said he tried to tell
her that, too. Harry insisted – but the money was going to sit
right there until something was found. They would spend enough of
it for gas and permits and such and no more. What he and Guila had
put in already would pay for all that. Don’t get in a stupid hurry.
Get the agreement from the government to explore and keep eighty
percent of what they found before they put another centavo into it.
If they found it now, before they had the accord, the government
would allow them to keep maybe five percent.

“
Do we have to let the government get
involved in it?” the one Clint decided was John Littleton asked. “I
don’t see why we don’t find it and get it out before they know
anything about it! Why take half a slice when you can have the
whole sandwich?”

“
Because we could get stopped by the
policia like we did the other day,” Zacharia said. “If we had one
little item the government would take it all and probably put our
asses in jail for four years on top of it. There’s enough that even
the five percent they would allow if we found it and reported it
without permits would make it a good deal. Don’t get greedy. You
would end up losing everything. We’ll operate strictly inside of
the law and won’t have to spend the rest of our lives running and
hiding.”

Valdez agreed, as did Gina. John seemed a bit
miffed, but shut up. He then said he would have to transfer the
money before the end of the month or lose the fifteen percent
deposit to the agent. That was his real hurry. Transfer it now or
lose double in fees. The damned banks were so crooked anymore that
you couldn’t even trust them not to try to screw you out of what
you worked for all your life. It was purely sickening.

Yeah, and you’re so honest
and upright you want to find whatever and smuggle it
out
, Clint thought. He wondered if maybe Dear John
didn’t deserve to lose his ass. He might have walked away from it
right there if it wasn’t for the suggestions about the
Nesmiths.

“
We would really prefer to wait until
... well, it will be safe enough in the account. Nesmith’s half mil
is there and our million. We get enough on the interest so we can
operate,” Zacharia said. “I really wish it was in your name, not
ours. We could have worked out something. We could have formed a
corporation.”

“
Uh-huh! And that damned lawyer said we
had to move here and apply for permanent residence or something,
which means we’d have to wait eight damned months before we even
started!”

“
It’s been there almost two hundred
years so it wouldn’t go anywhere,” Valdez said. “I don’t like all
this hurry-hurry.”

“
We have to hurry,” Zacharia pointed
out. “We were through this ten times already.”

“
The damned lawyer said we couldn’t
wait or it would be two years before a corporation would hope to
get permits. Getting them as tourists on a lark would be fast and
easy,” John retorted acidly. “Even with this we’ve had to wait ‘way
too long. Everything takes too long here.”

Clint could hear the Indio recognition call,
“Oye! Oye!” just barely in the range of hearing. Back toward
Cusapín. Moises had taken several people with him to explore where
they found the blood yesterday. They probably found where the blood
came from.

“
What’s that?” John asked.

“
The Indios working up in the mountains
calling across to each other when they pass. It’s like `Buenos
dias’ – sort of,” Zacharia answered.

“
It sounds like it’s coming from the
water,” Gina said.

“
They call when they pass in their
cayucas. Somebody they know on the beach will yell, or they’ll yell
out to someone on a boat,” Valdez explained. “We’d better get
moving. I think we’re very close. This is pretty well what was
described.”

“
This is almost exactly what’s there,
but that was a long time ago,” Zacharia replied. “I think today or
tomorrow we find it!”

“
I think we should check that one up
ahead that’s fallen over on an angle,” Valdez suggested. “It would
have probably been straight up two hundred years ago.”

“
You’re right!” John cried. “My god!
What if the marker tree fell over years ago?”

“
Well, it could have happened, I
suppose,” Valdez answered. “I doubt it. Nisperos very rarely are
affected by anything. That one back there is at least eight hundred
years old. Maybe more than a thousand. They’re tough.

“
That’s a good thing about them. If
it’s one that got blown down or something less than two hundred
years ago it’ll still be there. Nispero doesn’t rot and bugs and
termites don’t eat it. It’s too hard. You can’t even drive a nail
into it. We’ll just have to explore a bit more. We’ve already
checked out seventeen of them in four days so it would be
inconvenient, but would only mean spending another week or so
looking, I think.”

Clint heard a very faint call by the Indios
to get the police. Valdez didn’t seem to hear it. Zacharia had her
head inside the boat to replace the thermos. Gina and John weren’t
supposed to know any Spanish so only Valdez would have understood –
so why the smirk from Gina to John? Why a smirk, not shock?

Valdez waved and they pushed the boat into
the water and got in to head on toward the nispero on a slant.
Clint waited until they were a good distance, then moved just
inside the tree line for a couple of kilometers before getting on
the beach to head for where he heard the calls.

Moises and four men were bringing the bodies
of two middle-aged gringos onto the beach as he arrived.

“
Well, Clint! Seems we found where the
blood came from! Now we have to find out who they were,” Moises
greeted.

“
Ida and Harry Nesmith,” Clint replied.
“We have to find what they were looking for here, but I think it’s
pirate treasure. They have some old maps.”

“
With them?” Moises asked.

“
Uh-huh.”

“
Could anyone be that
gullible?”

“
Apparently.”

Moises laughed. “So they carry around paper
maps a couple of hundred years old instead of scanning and copying
them. They would be the ones who say Indios are stupid.”

“
Well, you are. You still can’t catch
up to the stupidity level of those idiots.”

Moises grinned and gave him the finger. “So
we must know what, but we can guess.”

“
The ‘what’ I want to know is what bank
these two put the five hundred grand in that ended them up dead,”
Clint corrected. “It’s the twenty-sixth. The other two will end up
dead before the end of the month when their funds are deposited,
I’d say. I’d also want to know what a certain look
meant.”

“
You never make any sense,” Moises
accused.

Plots Within Plots

The police boat came about ten minutes later.
Clint told them what he knew, then got in the cayuca with the
Indios and headed back toward Cusapín. He went directly to the
computer and started looking up things. He called Goins and asked
for some information, then told him Ida and Harry were no longer
among the living.

“
What was the deal?” Clint
asked.

“
Well ... I’m not sure.”

“
Find out everything you can about all
of them. What bank, names in the account, who can or can’t move
funds, everything. Something is very wrong here. There’s something
that means ... there’s a plot within a plot. Who’s running what
part?” Clint asked. “Ralph, I need some information. Today.
Fast!”

Goins agreed and said he’d call back within
the hour.

Clint could find very little about any of
them. He had their passport numbers from Goins so could use his
influence with the Policia Nacional to find a few things.

He went to the estacion to ask for
information. Salvador Esperanza, the head of the little police unit
in Cusapín got on the com to immigration to see what he could
find.

“
The Nesmiths arrived here on the sixth
of last month. The Littletons arrived on the tenth. Zacharia and
Valdez arrived on the tenth, also. I think they came with the
Littletons from San Jose’ Costa Rica. They went to Chitre, then on
to Puerto Armuelles. The Nesmiths were already in Armuelles
visiting the Wards, a gringo couple they listed on entry as friends
from the same city in Kentucky,” Sal said ten minutes later. “I
have business contacts looking for anything on any contracts. They
opened a bank account, all of them, with a deposit of one quarter
million dollars from Zacharia and Valdez and five hundred grand
from the Nesmiths from cash transfers. The bank has a promissory
from the bank of the Littletons for one half million that is to be
deposited by transfer on the thirtieth of this month. Only Zacharia
can draw funds and she must have authorization from any two of the
others.”