Clint Faraday Mysteries Collection B :This Job is Murder Collector's Edition (9 page)

Clint rested with the others for an hour or
so, then said he was going to the top to see the view. Obilio said
they could see the Caribbean this time of the year, but it wasn’t
very often you could see the Pacific. It was the rainy season that
side of the mountains.

There was one small patch in the clouds where
the Pacific could be glimpsed. The Caribbean was visible most of
the time. Everyone was thrilled, but went back to the house. Matt
was a bit winded, as was Ann. Clint told them they were at an
altitude where the air was getting a bit thin. Mike said he felt
that and Mark said the only places that had affected him much were
at Machu Pichu and La Paz.

They went back for dinner. Pork aguisada with
rice and beans. There was a stew of a number of vegetables that
were found in the mountains. Lila had boiled a pan of mustard
greens because she knew how Clint liked them. The Indios seldom ate
mustard, but it was a weed around the place. She put some pork skin
in the pot when she boiled them (at Cori’s suggestion) and Judi
brought vinegar. Obilio and Lila tasted them that way and said they
would probably be eating them all along if they knew how to fix
them. The vinegar and pork skin made them very tasty. Cori said
mustard greens were called the perfect green. It had everything a
green leafy vegetable could have in the way of healthy vitamins and
minerals.

When they went to bed the men went in one
room and the women in the other. Pablo and Maria wanted to stay in
the bodega. They weren’t used to sleeping in the same room as
others since they were very young and slept in the same room as
their brothers and sisters. If anyone had a curse on them the
others in the room might suffer when it came.

Judi shook her head. When they went out to
the bodega Mike said that was the kind of thing he heard everywhere
on the islands. Some curse or a zombie or a demon was chasing
everyone for one reason or another. People were downright paranoid
about it. It was tiresome. They had to live with a lot of terrors –
all in their own heads. You could see what it did to the psychology
of the people. Everyone on this jaunt was having fun except
them.

Clint was amused when there were only two
pallets and two blankets. They had bathed in the stream. Obilio and
Clint were on one pallet and Mike joined them. Mark and Matt took
the other. Mike said if anything happened he wouldn’t want it to be
with his father or brother. Matt said that was true. Anyone he
screwed ended up thinking they were in love with him and that
wouldn’t be right with a little brother.

When they first got in bed Clint and Obilio
laid close together and Mike grinned and hugged them both. Matt and
Mark were a bit apart when they went to bed. They were together
later after the temperature had dropped into the mid-fifties when
they awoke to a scream from the direction of the bodega sometime
after midnight. They all jumped up and ran for the shed.

The moonlight makes things fairly visible at
that altitude. The door to the bodega was open. Pablo was inside,
ripped from his neck to his crotch with what looked like three
large deep claw tears. His throat was ripped open. He was obviously
dead. Maria was nowhere to be seen.

“
What the hell did that?!” Mike
exclaimed. Judi, Ann, Cori and Lila came running from the house and
Clint stopped them and said Pablo was dead. Go inside and stay
there.

“
What kind of animal up here could do
that?” Mark asked.

“
There are no animals up here that
could do that,” Obilio said. “There is a story of a demon that
kills people who invade the natural places. It only kills on dark
nights. This is not a dark night. It kills by breaking the neck,
not with claws.”

“
We have to find Maria,” Matt said.
“There’s something I’ve heard. There’s something they were running
from. Pablo said he was trying to break a curse on him a couple of
times. A vengeful ghost was chasing him.

“
No ghost did that!”

Live and Learn

Clint used his cell phone to call the police,
who said it was in the comarca so would be handled by the council.
If the council requested they would come immediately. Obilio took
the phone and identified himself as a member of the council and
asked them to come to investigate this one thing. Clint would
represent full authority of the council in the matter. They would
fly in on a helicopter at dawn. They couldn’t land at night on
those mountains.

Clint asked if Obilio really had that
authority.

“
Oh, certainly. I am what you would
call the first vice president in your corporations. I am in full
charge on this mountain and the parts in the comarca around for
most of the close mountains. Javier handles half and I handle half,
but he is in charge.”

You live and learn! Clint had known Obilio
for more than three years and didn’t know he was second in charge
in the comarca!

He called for Judi to bring his camera, took
pictures from all angles of the scene, then asked Obilio if he
could find some kind of trail where Maria had been taken. Obilio
went outside and a short distance from the bodega and circled
around. He had a flashlight Ann brought to him, but said they would
have to wait for light. A trail would be nearly impossible to find
or follow with no more than the flashlight. The flashlight didn’t
have the right kind of light to see like the sunlight did. Mike
said the sun had the full spectrum was why plants grew in sunlight
and not in artificial light not designed for plants.

“
I believe her body would be here if
they wanted to kill her,” he said. Clint thought about it and
nodded.

They went inside to have some very strong
coffee and to wait for dawn. Clint asked how they charged their
phones up there and Obilio showed him the solar panel with an
adapter. It was the kind of panel used to trickle-charge car
batteries.

Mike came to sit with them. He was still a
little sick from seeing that mutilated body. Obilio sat close. That
was the Indio way. They offered comfort by touching. There’s no
word for “Thank you” in their language. They don’t have to say
something so obvious. They say such things through contact, even if
it is only a slight squeeze of the hand. Clint found many parts of
the culture very natural to him. Apparently, Mike did, too.

Dawn was just breaking when they heard the
chopper coming across the valley. It would be dark in the bottom of
the valley for some time yet, but the mountaintop had the sun
first. The police officer, Samuel Lopez, directed the one detective
with them and took pictures much as Clint had, then searched
through the effects of the Garza’s. There wasn’t much, but the
passports had good pictures they could use to try to find Maria.
They would take the body back to David. Clint, Mark and Obilio
started the search for a trail to find Maria as soon as the light
was enough. They found two trails. The attacker(s) had come from
the direction of the carretera and left toward Volcan Barú. They
could find the trail lower, but there was a stretch where it would
be almost impossible to track.

Mark called from a short distance away. He
found a small bit of plastic on a bush. There was no plastic up
there. It would have to have been put there.

Obilio said the winds would sometimes bring a
plastic bag or such, but this was placed with too much force for
that. It was a small scrap of pale blue that would not stick to
anything in the wind and was only there for a few hours because the
sap was still wet where a leaf was torn off. Clint had to search
very carefully to find wet sap that Obilio saw automatically. It
looked like dew from the clouds that sat there until nearly
daylight and was only now completely drying to Clint. Obilio said
sap contains sugar. Ants eat the sugar. There were two small ants
on the twig. Also, light was a very little bit different on sap
than on water. Clint couldn’t see any difference, but knew Obilio
could, whether from a learned more sensitive reception of color or
because of genetically different receptors in the eye.

Matt called Mike and said he was to protect
the women with his own life, if it came to that. He and Cori would
take the .38 and would shoot first and ask questions later if Lila
said someone was not a familiar and trusted face. Cori said she
would put up the flag for Luis to come. She was sure they could
trust him. Clint agreed.

Clint, Obilio and Matt followed the trail for
two kilometers until it was hopelessly lost in a small shallow
rocky creek. There were a couple more small scraps of plastic to be
found before the creek.

“
This quebrada reaches another more
than a kilometer down the valley, then that one goes to a larger
one that goes to the big river,” Obilio explained. “If someone was
forcing the woman to go they will not yet be to the river. She has
left several scraps of plastic from a bolsa for us to find. Perhaps
we can reach the river before they do. There is a very easy path
close. There will be very few scraps because she is trying to have
whoever she is with not know she is leaving them. Very small bits
can be torn from a bolsa on the carry loops that will not be
noticed where larger pieces will be seen. She is very intelligent.
She may be too ... we must be careful. She knows she has to be
careful. This is not a good situation for any.”

“
Now I’m confused,” Clint said. “If
they knew the area they would know of the faster path. If not, they
wouldn’t even know about this route out of here. It doesn’t compute
somehow.”

“
Ah!” Obilio exclaimed. “So they are
going somewhere before the river that is also close to the
quebrada.”

“
Are there any houses along here?”
Clint asked. Obilio shook his head.

“
We passed a cave back a ways. Are
there caves?” Matt asked. Obilio said there were a few. Small, but
easy to reach from the trail.

“
Then it’s someone from here and
they’re in a cave. I’ve been here four times and didn’t know about
them,” Clint suggested. “We can go spelunking.” He checked his
Glock. Matt grinned and took a .32 automatic from his belt in back.
Clint had noticed it when they left Obilio’s, but had waited to see
if he would let them know he had it. Clint was relieved that he
did. Obilio simply nodded and went to the little cliff ledge to
study the valley below. He waved for them to come and went down an
almost invisible trail into the forest. He said they could reach
the more likely of the caves very quickly from where they were. It
was mostly downhill and the mountain here was not so steep it would
be difficult to stay on the path.

“
Very quickly” turned out to be almost
an hour. There was evidence that someone had been there recently,
but no Maria. Matt went slowly around and found a very small
plastic bit on a branch. “Does this mean they came from that way or
that they left that way?”

Obilio searched back along the path and
finally said, “Both.” They followed the path, several times losing
it and having to circle to find it again.

They spent most of the day searching. They
didn’t find anything else. Late in the afternoon they came to a
small group of huts with a path that led to a trail that led to the
carretera. Obilio said that was where the bruja (witch woman)
lived.

“
Oh, shit!” Matt exclaimed. “He was
always worried about a curse, he’s dead, Maria’s missing – and the
trail leads to a witch! This is a little beyond weird!”

“
His curse was from the Dominican
Republic,” Clint pointed out.

“
But he was scared here. He said the
curse followed him anywhere.” from Matt. “He was scared in Jamaica
and in Guatemala. He was as much as terrified, but he seemed to
believe it was directed more at Maria. She was always a bit
fatalistic about it. She said it had to be lifted by the one who
placed it and could not be escaped. They’re terrified of their
voodoo kings and queens on the islands. Haiti is the
center.”

“
Brujas communicate over the whole
world,” Obilio stated positively. “I will ask to meet with her
tomorrow. Perhaps she will tell me things. Perhaps not.”

They went to the trail and back to Obilio’s
place. Luis was there with Mike and the women. He had four
horses.

“
I think there was someone over there
on that mountain watching us,” Judi said, pointing across the
valley to the near mountain that was only two or three hundred
meters lower than Obilio’s. “Twice, I saw a flash like the sun
reflecting off a mirror. Maybe a lens.”

Clint nodded. Mike got him aside and said he
didn’t want to scare the others, but he’d seen someone on the other
side of the stream where they bathed. He said it wasn’t an Indio.
He was much lighter in color, but he couldn’t see much else. He was
wearing camouflage clothes that looked too much like military issue
so it could be someone from the police. He didn’t know if they
would leave someone to watch, but didn’t think that chopper could
carry three. They had to carry Pablo’s body on the runners – which
meant someone might have ridden in on a runner.

“
No one was left on the comarca,” Clint
replied. “Obilio would have to approve and would know about
it.”

Mike looked grim and nodded. Clint was
impressed that someone his age was so much in control and so aware
of reality. This was no exciting adventure to him. He wasn’t lost
in some TV show mentality.

Cori got Clint aside a bit later and said
almost the same thing. She didn’t want to worry anyone. Things were
tense enough without that. She had told Luis, who went casually
down to the stream to see if he could find anything.