Clint Faraday Mysteries Collection B :This Job is Murder Collector's Edition (28 page)

“
Maybe you can find something there.
I’ll check on anything I can. Will you want me to arrest
Stedmann?”

“
Might as well. Maybe I can get him to
talk. I’m sure he thinks he’s gotten away with a hell of a lot.
He’s going to be the type to brag.”

Sergio nodded.

Barbara Manson was Barbara Manson. Not even a
relative of Charles Manson. It wasn’t an alias. Clint decided to
crossreference everyone dead he knew about and to try to find if
any of the others were dead.

Four hours and he found that Lucille and
Edward Baldwin had died in Nevada when they were camping near a
river on vacation three years and two months ago. They ate some
sandwiches that were contaminated with botulism and were too far
from medical aid and too sick to climb the mountain to their car.
It was a very fast-acting form of the food poisoning and there was
fear for a while that the strain might be in the area, but they
apparently brought it with them in some mayonnaise that they had
inadvertently left un-refrigerated. The cooler was warm when they
were found the next day by rafters.

1+1 = 9. How many more?

Weirder Yet

“
Serg, I’m on my way to Panamá City to
see what I can learn from Stedmann. I don’t really think he’s the
head ... person. It could be Faith Richards and he was conned into
it by her or it could be almost anyone. There’s nothing to say that
whoever’s running the game is a member of that company, though I
think so.”

“
That’s something I was going to point
out. It may be some evil nut from outside who set it up for
personal reasons we can’t hope to determine nor
understand.

“
Well, there is nothing in the law that
says we must understand the motives of criminals, only that we must
prosecute them, particularly where violence is part of the
equation. Murder is, very certainly, considered a violent crime –
even when it is with a narcotic that would make it an almost
pleasant death. Definitions, you see.”

“
By any definition this is one weird
situation and one weird bunch of, I guess you would have to call
them people. Definitions.”

The radio called for Sergio, who
answered.

“
Sergio Sanchez? I am Sgt. Flacco. You
asked that we report on the movements of a group of tourists
traveling on business visas when we arrested one of
them?”

“
Yes. The Stedmann case.”

“
They seem very strange people. We
arrest a man who is in their group and who has been charged with
killing another in that group and they seem to want to complain
that it makes for a very inconvenient pause in their business
dealings! They seem to think he was very stupid to get
caught!

“
A woman, very beautiful, a Faith
Richards, said Stedmann thought this country wouldn’t see what had
happened and it was most inconsiderate of him to do anything that
obvious. They are not sane, I think. They are such cold examples of
the human race!”

“
Clint Faraday, who is known and who
works with us in many cases as a consultant and investigator will
come there to speak with Mr. Stedmann. It will be greatly
appreciated by the department if you will offer him all cooperation
that is legal in handling this matter.”

“
Yes. Okay, he’s gone for a minute.”
Clint raised an eyebrow and Sergio said the captain was in the
room. Flacco was a good friend, then into the microphone, “We also
think there is something very weird about those people, Jorge.
Outside the legal jargon (Sergio using a word like jargon’?) we
think they are a bunch of homicidal maniacs!”

“
Yeah, Sanch. I sort of got that
impression. We’ll help any way we can. Clint Faraday is a name
known and respected here.”

He whispered, “Capitan Nuncio!” then went
back to the “official” voice. “We will offer any and all
cooperation we may legally tender to your operative, Mr.
Faraday.

“
Base clear.”

“
Weirder yet,” Clint said. Sergio
nodded and looked very grim.

Clint went back to his house in Bocas Town,
spent some time with Judi – who said a girl at the garden club had
a brother who went to Los Angeles for an engineering firm to find
someone who could help with the oil refinery and had met the man
who had died in the car crash on the Changuinola road. He was with
a man they called “Don” and who was a very managerial type who
wanted to run everything so he went to another firm to find an
engineer. Did that help?

“
You know, it just might!

“
Judi, you can come up with information
we couldn’t find in four days of research with all the modern
methods! How do you DO it?”

“
Practice, practice,
practice.

“
Clint, you want to find things and ask
in ways that make people suspicious about why you ask. You don’t do
it with the Indios because you know damned well they’ll clam. I
inject a word or so into a conversation and move on. They say
things and I act like it’s interesting, but only as an anecdote,
then pass on. They usually forget they said anything. It’s a
psychological approach.”

“
Whatever, now you’ve pointed out
something I was doing wrong all along. I think you’re a better
detective than me!”

“
I can get information. You know what
to do with it after we have it. I don’t.”

“
We make a hell of a good team, don’t
we?”

“
Sorta. Got to go to the vigilante
meeting.”

“
Why? You don’t own a business
here.”

“
Neither does Dave, but they always
invite him. I sort of was invited to tag along when I went the
first time with him.”

“
Anyhow, I’ll be back as soon as I can.
I’ll go crazy if I can’t find what this crap’s about! I think it’s
a very, very sick game they’re playing. Good friends who kill off
each other to see who lives longest. I suppose that one’s the
winner – or something.”

Judi shuddered. “As you say, sick, sick,
sick.”

“
Well, you have to admit it fights
boredom!”

She gave him the finger. He laughed, she
left, he cleared everything up on the computer to clear up and
finish what he could of that and packed things for a couple of days
in Panamá City.

He then went to Changuinola for a flight to
David. They didn’t go to Bocas Town from David anymore.

He stopped in Almirante to discuss things
with Sergio. He reported that the group wanted his permission to go
on to Colombia to continue their business trip. They were told they
could possibly leave in two more days after they gave their testigo
declarations.

“
They are so damned cold!” Sergio
complained. “I think they feel nothing at anytime about
anything!”

“
That’s a pretty good description,”
Clint agreed. “God! I hate cities!”

“
You like David. It is a favorite place
to you.”

“
David isn’t like any city I’ve ever
seen. It’s ... different. A big town, not a city.”

“
A town? With high rises, casinos, very
fine restaurants, shopping malls?”

“
That’s what makes it so different. It
also has very warm and friendly people who have time to say
`Buenos!’ and are helpful as anyone can be. It’s tranquil except
for a few blocks around Centro. Dave’s apartment’s five blocks from
Centro and it’s like a very quiet suburb – except when one neighbor
cranks up the stereo until the neighbors begin to complain.
Panamanians love noise. The bars are so loud you have to scream at
each other across the table. Stores have loudspeakers on the street
that almost knock you down when you walk past. It’s strange and a
little irritating to gringos, but has an odd charm. I only wish
they’d play something besides salsa and regaton. I’m sick to death
of the same dozen songs over and over again for six
years.

“
There’s very little pollution. There’s
nowhere near the crime a city of that size always has.”

“
We like noise. True. It’s a part of
our culture.”

Clint nodded and said he’d call when he had
anything. He got a bus to Changuinola and was talking to an Indio
friend when they passed the spot of the crash. His cousin was there
working on timber when the crash happened and said there was no
truck to cause it. Clint said he knew that.

“
He told the policia. They didn’t do
anything. Gringos get away with murder here – and that is not an
expression.”

“
No. They don’t. He’s been arrested in
Panamá and will be convicted of murder,” Clint replied. “Pancho,
the police act here in most cases. Gringos or Panamanians. They
often actually are one-sided against the indigenos, but that’s
changing. They’re very efficient, but quiet. They don’t want to get
publicity except to an extent that people will know
criminality
will
be
prosecuted.”

“
This is true? You know it for a
fact?”

“
Yeah, Pancho. I’m on my way to Panamá
to help with the court to convict Stedmann.”

“
Then it is well. I will inform my
cousin and the others who were there and told the
policia.”

They chatted a bit more about more pleasant
subjects. Clint got to Changuinola and caught the flight to David.
He would prefer to take the bus, but this was forty five minutes
while the bus was four hours. He was in David five hours to speak
with people concerned with this there, then caught the midnight
express bus to Panamá City after visiting the places where he could
relax for a few minutes.

He got to Panamá City at eight in the morning
and went directly to the police station.

An Answer or Two

“
We spoke a few minutes in Almirante,”
Clint greeted Stedmann when he was led into the interrogation room.
Stedmann studied him for a few seconds.

“
So. Now I understand why I’m here. A
gringo cop working with the local yokels.”

“
Don’t kid yourself. Sergio saw
everything in two minutes at the scene. He called me because of
that. They use me with gringos they consider particularly weird.
Translator.”

“
They consider me weird?” It was simply
a question. No emotion in it.

“
Certainly. You know damned well you
are.”

He laughed shortly. “I guess I am. We all are
in some ways.”

“
Gonna tell me what it’s about? The
game?”

“
You figured it’s a game?”

“
Follow the blood. We know about nine –
ten, but Carlysle wasn’t a member of the group, only some schnook
who had the bad luck to look in a package of yours.

He nodded and looked thoughtful. “And you
think we’re crazy?”

“
Not much doubt is there?”

“
I sometimes wonder why I can’t ...
that there’s a lack in us. We don’t react to things like on
television. We don’t react to anything.”

Clint’s turn to nod. “It’s a rather strange
psychological constitutional condition. I just wonder how the bunch
of you found each other.”

“
We were led together by a friend of
Fuh ... one of us. He set things up because he found life to be
incredibly boring. He’s a genius in some ways. He’s a control freak
who wanted to set something up that he couldn’t control after its
inception. He wants a challenge.”

Clint remembered what Judi said. Don. It
wasn’t Wentworth, so... “Fieldman. Yeah. Faith is more or less his
agent.” Clint also noticed that “He wants” – so Fieldman was still
among the living.

Stedmann looked shocked, then wary. “It’s not
so much ... it got away from all of us, but we go on with it. I
don’t have the least conception of why.” Clint let it pass, mostly.
He acted like he was thinking of something else, which relaxed
Stedmann.

“
Boredom. You thought it would put some
new excitement in your lives, it did for a little while, now it’s
just as boring as everything else,” he replied in a disinterested
manner.

“
Could be. What do you think will
happen? Not that I care much. It’s just another something that
happened. I’m sort of like standing to one side and watching a bad
TV flick. Nothing will change except I’ll sit in some cell until I
die or something. All of us have millions, but can’t even buy one
lousy day of difference.”

It sounded rehearsed. Clint had read some
psychology books when he was first learning the detective thing.
This was almost like it was a memorized rote passage from one of
them. The distached personality. Sociopathic. Good Ol’ Stedmann was
about to learn something about Panamá ! That kind of psychobabble
didn’t have much weight in court here. He wouldn’t get a term in a
psycho ward, then be released in a couple of years as cured.

Would it give him a minute of excitement to
learn another plan was flawed by a small detail that could smack
him in the puss? Hard?

“
That doesn’t work here. No bleeding
heart `Oh, The poor dear! He wasn’t responsible for what he did
because his father molested him when he was just nine years old!’
or `His mother cut off the boob too soon,’ or that kind of thing.
You’ll get the max. You might have gotten the minimum sentence, six
years, if we didn’t find out about the others. The police here
don’t throw up their hands and say there isn’t enough proof like
some other countries – for gringos. They’ll do it
to
a gringo. We don’t kid ourselves
about the old `screw the gringo’ being alive and well in
Panamá.”