Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (47 page)

“
He made
it on the bets,” Clint said.

“
And he
paid those two to see that two other horses didn’t win,” Dave
added. “We have to find races where Lesley’s horses were expected
to come in a long second and where there was an upset.”

Marko and Clint nodded. Marko said he could
use the dates on the pictures to determine which races. He could
use the fact his old organization ran the betting on most tracks to
find out how much Lawrence took from them.

“
I think
I see what he had in mind,” Clint said. “That money was channeled
through somebody else who would be cut out by his death. He would
come here, change the will and manage to die while making it look
like murder. That’s why it seems so contrived. It was. Maybe we can
find who in the other files. The doctor and lawyer are back in
big-time!

“
He was
trying to make it look like someone murdered him. Someone in that
family. He didn’t want there to be any clues left as to which one
so they would all stay under suspicion.

“
I don’t
think Trudy was blackmailing him, but someone was. Find out how and
when regular payments started to one of them from those
records.”

“
It won’t
be in the records,” Dave stated drily. “That would put the
suspicion on one. He wanted them ALL to be suspects to force them
to live with that land the state or whatever would take away from
them in death taxes. He was a nasty old bastard, but maybe with
good reason for a part of it. I just wonder when it started. Before
the wife died?”

Judi nodded this time.

“
Nope!
There wouldn’t have been any reason to hide the comps if there
wasn’t something there,” Clint said.

“
Then
let’s get at it,” Marko replied.

They spent more than two hours pouring over
the flash drives, then started on the CD’s. The comps hadn’t shown
much that would indicate Lawrence was suspicious or that anyone was
hiding something big. There were quite a lot of expenses in
relatively small amounts all of them had taken. The banking records
on the CD was much like it. There were regular large withdrawals
labeled simply, “Estate: S” and “Estate: C”.

That would be Switzerland and California.

“
I
noticed something strange, but that may be because I have no idea
how big the Swiss place is,” Judi noted when they sat
back.

“
It costs
one hell of a lot to run the California ranch,” Clint
agreed.

“
You
missed a disk,” Dave insisted. “I think I see who was behind a lot
of it. She’s working with someone here to have known to hide those
comps.”

“
Good old
Frieda. She was ‘way out of character there.”

Marko made a call. He told someone to find
that CD and to watch every move Frieda Helmut made. He was about to
ring off when he added, “See who she’s chummy with at that place.
It will be someone who works with the horses, I think. You can ...
no. That’s probably here.”

“
What’s
probably here?” Judi asked.

“
The copy
of Trudy’s CD that Donald made,” Clint said.

Dave grinned. “She didn’t know about it. She
could figure it had to be that.”

“
She
didn’t figure it when he was killed,” Clint pointed out. “She was
in shock then. I imagine she’s found it by now and will be running
scared. She knows who’s involved here. That puts someone in a very
bad position.”

He called Sergio and said to quietly protect
Trudy. Don’t let anyone have a tiny hint she was under special
attention.

“
She
isn’t the killer here, I don’t think,” Sergio replied.

“
No. She
knows who is. She will have it figured by now,” Clint agreed. “We
have to play it close until we find who else is involved. I don’t
think more than one here.”

“
And
there?”

“
Two,
probably. We know one of them.”

Then all they could do now was wait until
there was a lot more information from the states. Clint considered
the set-up, then shook his head and told them he was going back to
San Blas. That doctor was the third tip of a very nasty
triangle.

Or maybe the lawyer.

Or maybe both.

“
What...?” Marko asked.

“
I have
to get my hands on Lawrence’s medical records from when he started
using Orison until the present. They’ll be in Switzerland. I don’t
think he’ll object to having them sent over here to Sergio as a
part of his investigation. He’ll think all they’ll want here is
copies for the files that no one will ever read. No one here has
the ability to decipher them.”

“
What?!”
Judi exclaimed. “Some of the best medical experts in the world are
in David and Panamá City!”

“
Yeah,
but the records will come here to Podunk Hick Island,” Marko said
with a dry smirk. “I’ll have some of the boys in Switzerland see
that nothing’s left out of those records when they’re
sent.

“
What’s
the important part, Clint?”

“
For what
I’m thinking, X-rays and diagnosis forms.”

“
Well,
the not-so-good doctor was preparing to claim confidentiality until
Valdez said he would then have to stay in Panamá until he could be
called to testify in court. Probably three or four months,” Sergio
said. “He whined about his practice going to hell if he couldn’t go
back soon – and why did we want his medical records,
anyhow?

“
I told
him the man died of poison, but he also had terminal cancer. We
have to prove the cancer part and to show his health was bad. I
told him if we had the complete records to prove it the defense
wouldn’t even bother to bring it up.

“
He asked
if we had found the killer. He was VERY nervous then. I told him
the killer would almost have to be someone in the family who was
here.

“
He said
that if no one would probably ever look at more than the overall
general diagnosis his client’s privacy wouldn’t be much invaded and
no one has the expertise to understand most of it, anyhow, so blah,
blah, blah. He gave a legal POA to Valdez to take to Switzerland.
His secretary would see they had copies of everything. They would
only show what we already knew, anyhow, so there wasn’t any real
reason to withhold them if it would aid in catching the person who
murdered him, would it?

“
He’s
creepy. I suspect he’s involved in some way – or maybe he thinks he
won’t be paid if they say he wouldn’t cooperate with the police in
the old bastard’s murder.”

“
See?”
Dave fired back. “Ha! ‘No one will even read them and won’t be able
to understand what they’re reading anyhow!’ Told ya so! Told ya
so!”

Clint gave him the finger.

“
What’s
going on? Why do you need ... Madre de Dios!” Serg
cried.

“
Jesus H.
Christ!” Judi cried. “That slimy doctor was deliberately killing
him all along! Slow and painful! He has some way to get his hands
on those seven million euros as sure as I’m sitting
here.”

“
And
someone’s already gotten their hands on a lot of it,” Clint pointed
out. “You know what this means?”

“
Means?
What?” Dave asked.

“
Someone
in that weird family knew about the doctor all along,” Clint
replied. “I want to know if that one was in it from the first or if
something got him or her involved later.

“
When?
I’ve come across some very nasty people before in my cases. I doubt
anyone was as nasty as that doctor and whoever else in a part of
this scheme. Frieda, almost certainly. Donald is explained, at
least.”

They nodded. Judi shuddered.

It would take two days for the medical
records to arrive in Panamá City. They would be sent on an
airliner, then by a local air delivery system. They should be in
Bocas on the 8:30 AM flight on Wednesday.

They would just have to wait for that part.
Clint would decide whether he wanted to go to San Blas later. He
doubted he would learn much before he had the medical records. If
that doctor was part of what he suspected he would have trouble
facing him without putting a bullet square between his eyes. Even
such a bastard as Lawrence Lesley didn’t deserve that!

Maybe Marko’s operative would come up with
some information he could use as leverage from the man who was
watching Frieda.

He started picking up the CD’s and flash
drives to put in a box of stuff for the case and groaned. Was this
one going to end up with ten more tangential cases?

Crap! Horse race fixing now? He did NOT care
to get involved with that kind of shit! On the other hand, he
already was involved, like it or not.

“
Okay. I
have the medical stuff,” Sergio said. “I don’t know how to read an
x-ray – unless someone is there to point out what’s
wrong.

“
Did
Manny’s friend in California get the things you need?”

“
Not yet.
He’s watching her. He went through her place completely and
nothing’s there,” Clint answered. “She doesn’t meet with anyone
else there except to give the schedules and orders.”

“
I see.
Is there anyone she avoids more than the others? Someone who
becomes obvious because the natural rule of things would demand she
meets with all the jefes?”

“
That’s a
good point that I hadn’t considered yet.” He called Marko and said
to have his man check on that. Marko said he had a list of
everything and of everyone on the place. He’d call back in a few
minutes.

Clint opened the package and read over the
general appointments and such. Lawrence had been to his office
every second week since three years ago. Before that it was once or
twice a week.

He took out the x-rays dating back for almost
seven years. The first one showed a very slight shadow on the left
kidney. Clint swore and told Sergio the doctor had found the cancer
on the very first x-ray. It was definitely operable then and
probably for some time after. Six months later it was much larger,
but still operable. Two months from then there was a slight shadow
on the left lung. Eight months later it was larger and a lesion was
showing on the left elbow on the bone about two inches from the
joint. Clint pointed to it and said that was the point when it
became inoperable. He’d been in constant pain for three years.

Sergio said he wanted to arrest Orison
himself. He would resist arrest and attack the officer, who would
teach him a thing or two about pain.

“
Then you
would be no better than him.”

“
There
are times it is justified.”

Clint couldn’t deny that – in this case.

Marko called to say the only one she didn’t
seem to ever speak with was a Frank Lindsay. He’d been on the ranch
for more than ten years as a trainer.

“
Description?”

“
Fifty
one, thin but athletic build, longish wavy brown hair that was
showing a bit of grey, dresses very well, drives a Viper, wears
blue contacts.”

“
A viper?
That’s a damned expensive car!”

“
Spends a
hell of a lot of money on several of the local ladies. Buys
expensive gifts. I’ll have him checked out and get back to you,
probably tomorrow sometime.”

“
Thanks,
Manny. This is one nasty mess. The doctor was deliberately killing
him by not treating the cancer seven years ago when it shows plain
as day on the x-ray.”

There was a silence, then, “The doctor might
have an accident any minute. How could anyone do something like
that?”

“
That
makes three of us, minimum, who want to see that one beg for death
before his request is granted. We have to find which one or ones in
that family were in it with him.”

“
That’s
even lower. We also have to find who knew about it on that ranch. I
doubt Frieda knew that part. I checked her out. She’s greedy and
larcenous, but doesn’t seem cruel or vicious. I want to know who
else is there who DID know.”

They talked a bit more, then rang off. He was
going to have a chat with the members of that family. It wasn’t
going to be easy to hide what he thought of at least one of
them.

Preposterous!

“
We have
to discuss a few things. Things from the recent past,” Clint told
the gathered group.

“
You got
all the records from the estate in California,” Trudy said. “That
means someone was embezzling?”

“
Of
course. That’s petty and pretty much standard for this kind of
deal. He was also being blackmailed. That will prove to be more
important than a bit of chicanery with household funds.”

“
Frieda?
She had a free hand with the estate funds,” Amanda said. “Pops said
he knew about the hundred here and there and had even told her to
take a bit when she needed it.”

“
We could
all take a few hundred anytime we wanted,” Wanda added. “He could
keep us all dependent that way.”

“
That was
in character. There’s a lot more to it than that. I imagine more
than one of you had a bit extra. Those funds were charged to the
estate, but the receipted expenditures at the California place were
nowhere near to what was being spent according to the bank
records.

“
Someone
broke into Frieda’s apartment while I was there and took a lot of
records she had hidden in the place. She took two computers from
the office and some disks to hide there. (uh-oh! He hoped that
statement wouldn’t be noted by someone there! He shouldn’t know
about those computers!) I think it was probably the IRS. They seem
to be interfering with the investigation here.”