Clint Faraday Mysteries Collection B :This Job is Murder Collector's Edition (7 page)

The windows and windshield of a police car
near the reporter exploded when hit by automatic weapons fire. The
reporter dove down behind the camera van. The picture was suddenly
the tire of the van. It moved quickly up the side of the van and to
the reporter, who was crouched down beside the driver’s door with
the microphone clutched in her hand. She gasped that there were
more shots fired that had come terrifyingly close. She was moving
to a safer position. The scene shifted back to the studio.

Clint grinned and went to breakfast. The
police knew how to handle this. None of the people around would be
hurt if they followed orders. Clint was sure not one person in that
house would survive. The report would be that the police finally
were able to enter and all of them inside had already killed each
other. There would be no survivors.

The TV at the little local restaurant had the
scene. The reporter from before was saying that the owner of the
house, a Sr. Ramos, was long suspected of mobster connections, but
there was never evidence to convict him of anything. There was a
rumor that the rival gang was led by someone known only as Sr. D to
the reporter. This seemed to be connected with an attack on Sr. D
by members of the Ramos gang. Something had happened that brought
the rivalry between the two gang lords to attacking each other at
almost the same time. Investigation into the causes of the violence
would have to wait until the violence was ended. It was believed
that Sr. Ramos was in the house under attack in Los Abanicos, as
Sr. D was in his house that was attacked at nearly the same time in
Pedrigal. If the attack in Pedrigal was at all like this one it was
most unlikely either of them survived.

Clint called Harry, who said he didn’t wake
up this early. It was only six o’clock!

“
Turn on TVN. Have a nice day,” Clint
replied.

“
Already?”

“
They were both ready. Neither thought
the other was. We can now write those two and their goons into a
footnote in the history of penny-ante wannabes. I’ll head back to
Bocas, I guess.”

“
Don’t fall for any treasure maps or
goldmine maps or any scams like that.”

“
Promise!”

Clint sighed, watched the TV for a few
minutes, ate his chuleta and rice with sweetened fried bananas and
beans, then had a salad of papaya, pineapple, apple, manzana de
agua, melón and pear with a mayonaise type of dressing and a
guanabana chicha. Nowhere else in the world could you find a
breakfast like that.

Clint again thought of how much he loved
Panamá.

Good Life

Clint looked out over the bay and smiled. He
raised his coffee cup to Judi, who was checking her plants on her
deck. She called that she would come over. He could fix her a cup
of coffee.

He went inside to check his computer. Nothing
new.

Judi came in and said there were some rumors
that a couple of gangsters were going to start a war over some old
maps or something and that the Martín family had been kidnapped,
but were back home. Nothing else that caught anyone’s attention.
Wild Bill couldn’t find a lawyer willing to take his already lost
case. Some detective from the states was buying a big island down
off of Chiriqui Grande. Some multibillionaire friend of Dave’s who
had a bellyful of the states.

Clint told her what had happened in David.
She was a bit shocked he would set those hoods up, but she had to
agree it was better much than having them around and interfering
with the police and abducting innocent bystanders.

Maybe Clint was getting pragmatic enough to
see the best way out of a bad situation. Finally.

Nothing else was important enough to catch
their attention at the moment. They decided to go into the
mountains to visit with some of their Indio friends and maybe could
make a few more. Judi said Dave would go along.

“
Oh, yes. Dave’s live-in has decided to
move to Las Tablas. She really likes it there and has a couple of
friends from the states who have been there three or four
years.”

“
Selma? I guess Dave will be upset
about that.”

“
No. That was always the deal. They’re
very comfortable with things as they’re going. Dave says he’s to
old for commitments and Selma is as independent as he is. He’ll
visit at times and she’ll come here at times or to his place in
David.”

“
Did he ever get that straightened out?
I know he owns two houses there, but they ended up in some crook’s
name.”

“
He’s still waiting for the police and
courts to do something other than make excuses and delay after
delay. He’ll get a few hundred of his Indio friends and take the
places back. Even the local excuse for the mafia doesn’t want a
hundred Indios kicking their asses every time they step outside the
front door. That’s more or less how you have to do
anything.”

“
What the hell? He’s getting pragmatic
too? A pragmatic cynic?”

“
I guess. I’ll call him. The detective
moving to the island is a friend of Selma’s. She says to wait until
I get a look at his wife. She makes Playboy Bunnies look like
drudges. If she wasn’t such a great person and friend she’d hate
the bitch on general principles.”

They chatted awhile as they collected what
they’d take up into the mountains. Besides a camera, Clint wouldn’t
take much. Dave came over and asked where they planned to go so
he’d know whether to take anything special. They said they hadn’t
gotten that far so he suggested inland from the Tierra Oscura
peninsula. He hadn’t gone more than a kilometer or so into that
area. It would be in the comarca, but they were all welcome
there.

Clint threw a shirt, underwear, toothbrush
and such in a small backpack. If they went to one of Dave’s
friend’s places up there they’d be there at least one night. They
set out for the mainland in Clint’s boat. It would probably not
rain today, but who knew? Or cared?

Clint Faraday

book seven

Comedy of Terrors

(c)2010 & 2013 by C. D. Moulton

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblances
to persons or events is purely coincidental unless otherwise
stated

When does the act stop being funny? After the
first murder ... or later?

Clint goes on a vacation in the mountains of
Calderas with some people who want to visit Panamá.

Some vacation!

Contents

Tourists

On the Comarca

Live and Learn

Witch
Connection?

Kidnapped!

Nothing
Figures

How Droll

The Missing Clue

Codes

Rewards

Comedy of Terrors

Tourists

Clint Faraday, retired detective from
Florida, lazed on his deck with his first coffee of the day to
watch the not-so-colorful sunrise today. The breeze off the
Caribbean was warm, so there was no rain approaching before noon.
This time of the year rain came from the Caribbean. It would be a
beautiful day.

Judi Lum, his attractive neighbor, came to
call from her deck a hundred meters farther along the bay, “Good
morning!” and to shake a finger at him for being on his deck, as on
most mornings, nude.

Why bother to dress until you know what to
dress for? He was in his own house and would wear as much or as
little as he chose. He wasn’t built any different than any other
guy and didn’t have anything to hide.

He waved and called that he thought he would
go out past Tierra Oscura for the day. Did she want to go along? It
would be all day.

“
I’ve got company,” she called back.
“They want to see the country, the real Panamá, not Bocas. Today
will be here, because they get in on the eleven o’clock flight. We
can meet for dinner at, say, seven thirty at The Rip Tide, Okay? We
can decide what they want to do tomorrow or whatever. They’re very
nice people and you’ll even like their teenage kids. I think
they’re as balanced and mature as any I’ve ever met that
age.”

Clint agreed, lazed around another half hour,
read his e-mail and answered a couple, then took his boat down past
Tierra Oscura to visit friends on the islands there awhile, went to
Chiriqui Grande for a couple of hours at lunchtime, then came
slowly back to Bocas Town at five o’clock. He cleaned the boat,
cleaned up himself a bit, and checked his calls. Nothing
important.

Next was his e-mail. Mostly spam. One from
his oddball friend, Dave, saying that he’d heard something strange
and didn’t know what to make of it so would pass it on, seeing Judi
was somehow involved. He knew how Clint protected her – even though
she didn’t need any protection. She was thoroughly capable of
taking care of herself.

Some people he didn’t know had been looking
for Clint, who wasn’t around and he was asked to tell him, “Those
Campbell people Judi met at the airport are not here to look at the
country. They came here to hide from some dangerous people. They
are not who they’re supposed to be.” That was it.

Clint sent back that he’d check into it if it
seemed particularly advisable. How could he identify who sent the
message? A description or something would do, seeing Dave said he
didn’t know them.

He put on some fresh shorts and a shirt and
went to The Rip Tide to meet the Campbells, who were a family who
seemed regular enough people to Clint. He was about forty and took
care of himself, she was about two years younger and was also in
great shape, as were her daughter and two sons. They weren’t really
vegans, but were interested in seafoods. They didn’t eat red meat
or certain vegetables.

Mark, the eldest son (19), said they had
learned some things in Jamaica about certain types of plants in the
diet. They could wreak havoc with the digestive system in certain
combinations. The mother, Ann, said to not make it sound like they
were fanatics. The daughter Cori (16), said it was in Haiti that
they ran across the fanatics. Matt, the father, said they ran
across nutcases most places, but tried to use logic in such things.
If you were told oranges were really bad for the teeth, check it
out. He was raised in an orange grove and ate several a day for
years. He had perfect teeth. The net information said it was bad,
but depended, as a lot of those things did, on genetics. Mike, the
younger son (15), said a lot of that crap was crap, anyhow. If you
don’t like squash, don’t eat it. Don’t make up some kind of horror
story as an excuse. Different people liked different things. He
didn’t like breadfruit until he tried some of the fried stuff that
afternoon. It was delicious. All he’d tried before tasted like
library paste to him. It was a big joke, anyhow. The human race had
been eating all of it for millennia and were still around – if you
used a loose enough definition of “human.” Some of the people
they’d met recently would play hell trying to fit his
definition.

They had a couple from the islands with them
who weren’t there for dinner, though Judi had met them and invited
them. She said they were a little strange, but that may be because
they’d never been off the island. In other words, the Campbells
were normal if a bit health-conscious people. Clint tended to like
them. They had great sense of humor. That always appealed to
him.

They wanted to go into the mountains where
Judi told them Clint knew almost every Indio in the two close
provinces. They wanted to see the real Panamá and meet the real
Panamanians. They decided to go in the morning. They would take a
bus to Gualaca, then would find a ride on toward Calderas. He
hadn’t been there in almost two years and wanted to see how some of
his friends were doing. The scenery was unbelievable from the tops
of some of the mountains. At Obilio’s place they could see both the
Caribbean and the Pacific if there weren’t too many clouds lower
than the top of the mountain. He warned them that it was a long
walk through native cloud and rain forests where there was usually
not enough of a path to follow. They could ride horses, but that
would cost quite a bit. He would ask Pablo and Maria Garza (the
couple traveling with them. They were darker Caribbean island
people, about twenty two or so) if they wanted to come. Matt said
they had enough to hire horses. Clint said that Luis would go along
with them. He had the horses and liked to explore along with Clint.
He was Indio, but Clint was always seeing things that he wouldn’t
notice. He learned a lot that way. He was a happy-go-lucky type
with a great sense of humor. The night was very pleasant. Clint
told them what to take and said they’d take his boat to Chiriqui
Grande, then ride the bus to Gualaca. Remember that they would have
to carry what they took in a climb that would take at least four
hours. Lugging a load of stuff that you wouldn’t use could take the
fun out of any trip. They would leave from the ferry dock at six
thirty in the morning.

Clint pulled into the dock at six twenty five
with Judi aboard. She’d decided that, seeing she’d never been to
that particular place, she’d like to come along. Clint met Pablo
and Maria Garza, from the Dominican Republic. They were small
attractive people who were very nervous for some reason. They
tended to be very quiet. They seemed a bit reserved and ... wary,
for some reason. Maria dropped her small maleta and crossed herself
before she picked it up.