Clint Faraday Mysteries Collection B :This Job is Murder Collector's Edition (26 page)

Follow the Blood

“
Los gringos quien esta por whitewater.
Uno morio’.”

“
I speak English and book all the
whitewater trips,” the tall thin man said. “Octavio
Arrenz.”

“
Clint Faraday. I have to know about
that trip and why anyone, drunk or not, would die along that
stretch.”

“
Suspicious as hell to me, too. No one
was drunk when they left here. It wasn’t but about four kilometers
down the river. I don’t think anyone could drink much crossing the
first rill. That meant he got too drunk to navigate in ten minutes?
Bullshit!”

“
Yeah. They had another socalled
accident in Panamá. Another one’s dead.”

“
That Faith woman there? The looker.
Bimbo body, but MENSA mind?”

“
Think she’s got her sexy ass in it?”
Clint had never seen her. This was the kind of information he
needed.

“
Well, she acts like an airhead’s
airhead, but things slip into it that make it very damned sure
obvious that she’s smart as all hell. She can’t resist getting a
zinger in on some of the others when she gets the chance. That
takes a really quick fucking mind.

“
I don’t know if she was flirting. It
seemed like it.”

“
Promising looks, then she’s insulted
if you take her up on it. Too many like that anymore.”

“
Yeah. I got my rusty ass burned enough
that I act like I don’t get the fucking hint.”

Clint bought another beer. Two bucks apiece
here, sixty cents in Panamá.

“
I have some suspicions. Things
happened in other places that they let little things slip about.,”
Clint confided.

“
Something damned sure as hell happened
in Mexico or Guatemala! I heard that Lily woman saying she was
worried that they might get the same kind of thing in the countries
down here,” he said. “We’re all so backward and prehistoric in
these rathole places. Fucking enough to make you want to smack her
in the fucking puss!”

“
Too many gringos like that. We all
have to live with what people think of us because of
them.”

He nodded. They chatted for a little while
and Clint started talking to an attractive girl. She turned out to
be very interested in him, too. Fifty bucks worth of
interested.

Clint told her he didn’t screw around on his
girlfriend. Maybe some other time. She lost interest. Clint went to
the pension and to bed.

What to do now? He had the information he
needed from Costa Rica.

Clint looked over the papers from the court.
He could go anywhere with government sanction from Mexico to
Brazil.

So he’d go to Mexico. Oaxaca. He called for a
flight and took a bus, then a cab to the airport in San Jose’. He
was landing in Oaxaca at dusk. Seemed like that’s when he got
anywhere.

This would be different. He couldn’t get his
information in a little local pub in Oaxaca.

Good lord! He didn’t tell Sergio he was going
to Mexico!

He called and Sergio said he suspected that
when Clint didn’t come back. Stedmann was allowed to go to David
about four o’clock. Judi Lum said she had some information about
things that Clint might be interested in knowing.

Clint called her. She said there was some
talk in Bocas Town about the supposed accident on the Changuinola
road. It seemed Dona Sanchocho’s husband, Juan, was cutting nispero
not five hundred meters from the socalled accident. The man in the
car had lied when he said there was a truck to run him off the
road. There was no truck. He told the police that and gave a
statement, but they let the driver go. Probably paid off.

“
Paid off? Sergio?” Clint
asked.

“
Exactly what I told them. There’s no
way anyone paid off Sergio Sanchez.

“
I figure you’re investigating that
accident? That’s why your phone’s turned off?”

“
Yes, I’m investigating it. No, my
phone’s not turned off. I was in Costa Rica yesterday and am in
Mexico now. Home tomorrow, I hope.

“
See what the scuttle’s about among
that bunch, Okay?”

“
Other than that one of them is a
sex-bomb, I haven’t heard much. I’ll listen and
suggest.”

“
Thanks, Judi. This is kind of strange.
I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

“
Clint? Manny’s got connections that
could help in Mexico.”

“
Thanks! I hadn’t thought of that. If I
can’t find anything on my own I’ll call him.”

They chatted a bit, then Clint went to a good
restaurant for a mixed mariscos dish something like paella. He
would go to the police station in the morning.

“
I did not believe what they told me,
about her cutting herself on some shells in the ocean in Mar Vista
and that it became infected during the drive to here, then she took
some antibiotics from a farmacia, but she wasn’t conscious much in
the hospital here. Her nurse, Carmencita Vilas, said she kept
trying to tell her something, but she didn’t make sense and she
didn’t speak Spanish enough to make her understand what she was
saying,” Sgt. Mario Cestas read from the report. “That was from
Officer Cortez, who makes out police reports when someone
dies.”

“
Thanks,” Clint said. “Can I find him
to ask a question or two?”

“
He will be at ... (he looked at a work
sheet) the morgue. He is talking with the family of a lady who died
of too much alcohol. It is a great problem here.”

He explained where to find the morgue and
gave him a short note that Clint was authorized to make inquiries
into past deaths. Clint found the morgue and waited outside until
Cortez finished counseling the family.

“
I need to know whatever you remember
about this case.” He handed Cortez the report. Cortez raised an
eyebrow.

“
You said you didn’t believe
them?”

“
They seemed to be placing a false
face. What has happened?”

“
Two more in that group have died under
suspicious circumstances.”

He nodded and sighed.

“
That woman who looks like a movie
queen was impatient that they had to get to Guatemala to meet
another partner while two of the group had to get back to Texas?
Her business partner and friend had died the night before and it
was an inconvenience, no more? They had an infection like that, a
resistant strain of staphylococcus, and bought some expired
antibiotic cream from a local farmacia? They had already made
arrangements for the body to be sent back to Texas for cremation? A
prepaid funeral and cremation is rather common today, but the
family and friends generally go to the funeral, at the
least.

“
The HUSBAND, `Donny’, they called him,
only was concerned about some kind of contract she was supposed to
sign and was wondering if perhaps he could sign it with a copy of
her death certificate?

“
I made the certificate to say she had
died of the staphylococcus infection, but there were serious
questions as to how and why she became infected and not treated
immediately. I noted on the report that I didn’t believe
them.”

“
The nurse said she tried to tell her
something?”

“
I ... yes, I noted that. You may speak
with her. I will translate.”

“
Yo hablo poco bien el espaniol. Mil
gracias por sus consideracion.”

“
Muy buenos dias.”

Clint looked up the nurse. She wasn’t on
duty, but the receptionist gave him her address and celular number.
He called her and arranged to meet her for lunch in the Buena Vista
Hotel restaurant.

“
Miss Vilas? I’m, er, llamame
Clint.”

“
Cita. Que desea?”

(translated) “I have to find what I can about
a Wanda Wentworth who died of a staph infection here a couple of
weeks ago. You reported that she tried to tell you something? Can
you remember anything about it at all?”

“
I understood only a very few words.
`Killed Sammy’ and `Houston Texas’ and `Veronica’. I think she was
saying she had killed someone or that someone there had killed
someone named Sammy. I think Veronica was ... I don’t
know.

“
Clint, they are very strange and cold
people who talk only of money and contracts while one of their
friends and partners is dying right in front of them. Why was that
resistant staphylococcus even in this part of Mexico? There had
been two cases in Mexico City last year. Never here or in Mar
Vista. They bought some antibiotic cream in a pharmacy that was
expired and didn’t seek a doctor when it didn’t work? They drove
all the way here with her unconscious part of the time in one of
their cars?

“
Excuse the vulgarity.
Bullshit!”

“
Two more have died. Both under what we
call questionable circumstances. I’m trying to find what the hell
is going on. I don’t personally care if they kill each other off to
the last one. I want to know why.”

She nodded. “Perhaps Mario of the police will
be able to find some information about Sammy or Veronica. His
cousin is working for the police department in Houston, Texas.”

“
Thanks, Cita. This is a big help. I’d
ask for a date if I didn’t have to go. You’re a beautiful
woman.”

She laughed. “You would have to first garner
permission from my husband!”

They chatted a few minutes, then Clint headed
back to the police station.

“
You can get the info?” Clint
asked.

“
I can try. I think, yes,” Mario
answered. “I was more than a little concerned and have asked that
Harry find what he can, but there was no urgency. Your papers
indicate that I may treat this as an official inquiry. Texas is
cooperative in many things.”

He used the computer to call Houston, ask for
official connection with Sgt. Harold Guterez, and explained what he
wanted if he could find any connection with the people on the list
he gave two weeks ago.

I have already found that the name, Frank
Carlysle, was probably who is in question. He was killed in a
mugging a month ago. The fourteenth. There wasn’t any way to find
who killed him. He ran errands for the SfTSpec, for whom he was
delivering a package when killed. Veronica could possibly be
Veronica Mayfield, the girlfriend of a man in the group who wasn’t
there in Oaxaca. Markus Stedmann. She has disappeared three days
later. It is reported by the woman who runs the apartment building
where she was staying that she is hiding from someone, perhaps a
mean suitor or past boyfriend. There is no more I can discover.

“
The SfTSpec?” Clint asked.

“
I think perhaps that is the name of
their company. I will see.” He ran a Google search on the name. It
was a company registered to that group and six others. “I imagine
it will take perhaps three days to gather all the information about
the company and the partners from Texas. I will give you the
internet code for my machine and will arrange to transfer any
details to your own computer.

“
I must say that computers have proven
a great boon to police work in some ways. So much is there. It is
merely a matter of knowing where to find it.”

Clint was about to ask him to check further
on that company, but was, apparently, anticipated. He used the
computers quite a bit, but this was the first time he actually saw
an official police investigation use Google! Now he would continue
the search and send him the results.

Hell, the information is there. Use it.

He said his thanks and goodbyes and headed
for the airport. He would get to Panamá City at eleven the
following day.

He went to the hotel and got a good night’s
sleep after calling Sergio with what he had learned.

Time Out!

“
Well, I’ve learned enough that you can
freeze their movements,” Clint told Sergio. “It would be a lot of
lawyers and affidavits and such in the states. Here, you just
arrest them.”

“
I’ll have an order issued that they
may not leave Panamá City until the investigation here is
completed.”

“
I think maybe I’ll just sit back and
wait for the information to be sent to me. It’ll take a few
days.

“
How long can you hold
them?”

“
For as long as the investigation
takes. I will simply tell them they may remain free, but will be
arrested and held in carcél should they be so stupid as to try to
leave the country. It would be seen as a sign of guilt by the
courts.”

“
I can use a day or two for fishing and
such. Going out of Panamá tires the hell out of me.”

“
I will inform you if there is any
progress or detail that should come to your attention.”

“
Thanks, Serg.”

They talked a bit more, then Clint went to
his place, spent what was left of the day with Judi and Ben, a
neighbor. Dave was in town so they went to El Ultimo Refugio to see
him play with some of the local musicians. It was a pleasant night,
but Clint went home early.

In the morning Clint went to all the regular
stops to talk with the regulars. Manny and family (Manny Mathews,
actually Marko Bocinni, a retired godfather Clint helped find a way
to raise his family without interference by the old mob in
California) came to shop a bit for groceries. Clint told him about
the case. Manny said he would put out a notice for information.
Clint said he would ask if it came to that point. He may get it
without the hassle.