Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (50 page)

“
Well,
Clint!” Reynaldo greeted. “There’s a lot of talk around about your
dead friend. Most say you know who killed him and others say you’re
completely stopped by this one.”

“
He was
NOT a friend – and the truth’s somewhere between those
extremes.”

“
It
usually is,” Gisela (the owner of Bongos) said. “All the people who
met them say he was the most obnoxious ass they ever saw. Dave was
in and said he thinks a man in San Blas is behind it. He couldn’t
be the actual killer. He hired it.”

“
That’s a
possibility. Trouble is, there are four or five other equal
possibilities.”

Al (Gisela’s husband) said the killer was
here and it was planned. They brought the curare with them.

Al’s a doctor who helps the local doctors
when needed. They would have told him all they knew.

“
Curare
grows all over the place here,” Travis (a local medicinal herb
expert) argued. “They could pick it.”

“
But they
couldn’t process it to injectable,” Al pointed out. “Not in a
couple of days. They didn’t go anywhere to get it. They were here
less than a day.”

“
That’s
the logic I used the minute I saw them there,” Clint said. “If it
was one or more of that weird family they brought it from the
states. They have race horses so have curare.
Injectable.”

Al nodded. “What about the mouthpiece and
sawbones in San Blas? Did they know enough here to have hired
someone?

“
This
whole thing is weird. If I was going to murder anyone it certainly
wouldn’t be with curare in a foreign country! There’s something
else going on with that bunch. Count on it.”

Clint could get something started that might
be to his advantage. People were listening and these people were
gregarious enough that they would discuss it with others. Al and
Gisela could figure that’s what he wanted.

“
Well,
with the IRS showing a lot of interest, I have to agree. Also the
racing commission in California.

“
IRS?”
Gisela asked. “Laundering money. They won’t learn anything
here.”

“
They
will if they know where to look,” Al argued. “It would be put in
offshore accounts, but would have to be laundered on the
way.

“
Find out
the way it was done. ‘Follow the money,’ as they say on TV cop
shows.”

“
We have
to find where it comes from first,” Clint said. “With the racing
commission asking questions....”

“
They’re
claiming all kinds of returns for bets,” Gisela said. “Pay taxes on
the winnings ... then they don’t have to launder or use those
offshore accounts, do they?”

“
Not if
they report all the money like that. It could be a clever cover,”
Travis pointed out. “The winnings explain why they have a lot of
money. They can take out a hell of a lot more than they
report.”

“
A
semi-legal operation,” Al agreed.

“
And that
would explain a lot,” Clint added. He talked a few more minutes
then headed for his house. What he needed now would be on the
computer records. He just hoped he knew how to find it.

Whose name would it be registered under?
Rasmussen and Orison? Frieda as a simple cover? Lindsay? Someone in
the family? Could he connect the facts enough to tie it together or
was it two or three different things that just happened here and
now?

WHY WAS DONALD MURDERED
? That’s the part that didn’t tie to anything. Clint
suspected it was because he was in the wrong place at the wrong
time.

Don’t get ahead of yourself! Get the passport
records and find who was here to do it.

Too Much
Travel

“
Lawrence
was here four times in the past three years,” Sergio reported. “He
stayed in Panamá City Paz Nuevo, a clinic that does research on
tropical diseases that is owned by himself as majority, Orison and
Rasmussen.”

“
Who do
their banking where?” Judi asked.

“
A
government-guaranteed trust fund based in Banco National,” Sergio
replied. “So far as we can determine it is perfectly legal and the
records are exact.”

“
Do they
have any individual accounts with connections to the trust?” Manny
asked.

“
No.”

“
They
simply made their connections there before they opened the clinic,”
Dave suggested. (They were gathered at his place on Isla San
Cristóbal where he had a small cabin in the epiphytic plant garden
he was establishing. The view was from the deck he’d built over the
house. The cabin was on top of a peak so the view was of the
islands in the archipelago and into the Caribbean.) “There isn’t
any reason to specifically build that kind of place in Panamá (the
natives mean Panamá City when they say it with extra stress on the
....ma’). It’s their contact point where they bring the geetus from
the states. Probably cash in medical supply boxes.”

Manny and Judi nodded at that. Sergio looked
interested. Clint thought, then slowly nodded. “Lawrence was the
horse. The good doctor and lawyer came every two months and always
stayed in San Blas in a suite in the Royal Arms Condos – which
Orison owns. “I checked with a friend when I was there. He called
me this morning at four o’clock to tell me.

“
They met
with a man called simply ‘Manolo’ by the natives. He’s from the
out-islands above Colombia toward Baranquila. Manolo is known to
work with certain Colombians suspected to be connected with drugs.
My part in this has nothing to do with anything but the murders of
Lawrence and Donald Lesley. You can do what you want with any
information I find by accident. I’m not to be mentioned in that
crap in any way. I could lose my information source.

“
I’m
going to go to one island there – not one with banks – to see what
comes together from that part and the murders. If the banking is
directly part of that it’s in the game that I would look into
it.”

“
Manolo
Velasquez, also Mike Vortin
et al
,”
Sergio added. “We came across him several times before. He looks
Latino and speaks perfect dialectical Spanish. We don’t know much
about him except he’s from either France, the USA, England, Germany
or Australia, among others. He has an indefinamente residence in
Panamá and in Colón, hangs around the Medellin crowd and stays just
on the fringes of a lot of semi-legal deals. He’s very popular with
the local natives and police. They say he might be into something,
but he doesn’t bother anyone and keeps some of the local thugs from
bothering anyone. He’s very personable, but there’s something that
scares people about him until they know him.”

“
So he’s
an agent watching the drug kingpins,” Manny suggested. “Has a set
of very nice boats. Probably also watched offshore accounts for the
US.”

“
I’d say
from Interpol,” Dave argued. “No narc from the states would come
off as anything but a TV asshole. We’ve both had experience with
them. I think you’ll find he’s not there to watch the drug crap so
much as to watch what they buy and who sells it.”

“
You got
me there!” Judi exclaimed.

“
The
biggies buy art and jewelry stolen from Europe and so forth,” Dave
explained. “Australia is missing a lot so that tells me something
about him.”

“
Logical,” Manny said. “Don’t do anything to blow his cover.
He’ll probably work with you where the DEA and CIA would definitely
try to cut you out.”

“
As you
said, I have some small experience with them, not good,” Clint
agreed. “I’m off early tomorrow. There’s a storm sitting out in the
Caribbean that could move in and I couldn’t get out of here for
several days.”

“
It’s
big,” Dave warned. “I don’t at all like the looks of it. A tropical
wave that’s coming in this far south is really bad news. It’ll sit
against the mountains and stay. Global warming. We warned about
this years ago.”

“
Global
warming?” Sergio asked.

“
Yes. The
warmer water makes the controlling currents in the Gulf Stream move
south. Storm fronts follow the Gulf Stream. Hotter water makes
stronger and longer storms. We’ll have hurricanes here where there
haven’t been any ever recorded within ten to twelve years,” Dave
answered.

They chatted awhile, then Sergio, Judi and
Clint went back to Bocas.

“
It woke
me up for just a few seconds. All my dishes and cabinets were
rattling,” Judi told Sergio and Clint while they waited for his
plane. “It was six point two in David and stronger in San José. I
think there will be a lot of derumbes between here and
David.”

They were discussing the strong tremor at
1:15 in the morning. There was an earthquake on the Pacific
side.

“
I don’t
like those low clouds or the feeling of almost depression,” Sergio
complained. “I think Dave is right. We have this rain now that’s
coming in very strong according to TV. It’s huge. The sea is
already high. Take very great care on those small islands, Clint. I
fear this one.”

Clint nodded and went out to the small plane
Manny had arranged to take him to San Blas. He planned to stop at
Cusapin for an hour or so to visit friends.

The ride was very bumpy. Cusapin was already
having a storm so they went directly to San Blas. It was more on
the fringes of the storm that was coming in more to the west and
north. Costa Rica and Panamá were in for it if Clint knew how to
read the feel of a storm.

He took his pack and went to the Brisa for a
room. The sea was high and rough though the storm wasn’t in the
immediate area. It was going to be a bad one. They told him the
Bocas airport was already closed and that the rains were like the
David rains. Coming down in sheets. 35 MPH winds. Panamá City
airport would close before the end of the day. San José was closing
down operations. A call from a friend in Chiriqui Grande said the
sea was very bad and that a house was about to slide into the sea
as they spoke. David airport would close in minutes. The river was
about to wash the David road away and was ‘way over the banks.
Several houses were about to be destroyed by it.

High tide would be about 5:00. The sea was
already over the regular high tide mark. There was a small surge
from the storm but it was very low pressure which added to it.

Clint had to turn his attention to the case,
but was worried. His house was over the sea. It was high enough. So
was Judi’s. The sea would have to raise six feet to get in. Waves
were probably splashing up, but the floor was sealed.

Judi called him at three and said the waves
weren’t splashing hard because it was shallow for a distance, but
it was looking very bad. Bocas was flooded. The rains were coming
too heavy to run off with the high tide. The sea was coming over
the streets on the row by the water. It was knee-deep in places.
This was too much like a hurricane except the winds weren’t strong.
TV said it would last two days, but she thought it would be more.
Dave said the storm would hit the mountains and just sit there
until it exhausted its energy.

At 4:30 Clint met Manolo Velasquez. He didn’t
beat around, but said he figured Interpol?

Manolo was a rugged dark handsome man with a
deliberate air of danger about him. He was popular with the local
kids, who flocked around him to play a game where he would put a
dime or quarter in his hand, take it back and forth from hand to
hand behind his back, then present fists which the kids would slap.
The one who slapped the hand with the coin got it.

Manolo studied him a moment. “You’re Clint
Faraday from Florida. I’ve checked on you since you were told about
me by your friend, Flako Sanchez. You will not interfere with my
job, which may or may not have to do with several large burglaries
of antique art in France, England and Australia. You will, in fact,
help reinforce the idea that I am a shady-type character who sets
meetings up with the more important Colombian, er, businessmen – as
I did for a Mr. Lesley and his doctor and lawyer, who are using him
to steal millions of pounds from Europe and more millions of
dollars from the states. I introduced them to a person who could
launder the funds through accounts in several banks that operate on
some of the nearer islands.

“
Would
you care for a beer?”

“
Nah. I
have to meet with this Manolo character to try to move a load of
pictures a friend saw fall off a truck in Sydney,” Clint snarled,
then in his normal voice, “That sounds damned good to
me!”

They chatted for over an hour. Clint didn’t
get another call from Judi and couldn’t get through to her.

“
Relay
tower slid down a mountain near La Fortuna, meaning there isn’t any
communication with Bocas at all except for some land lines on the
island,” Manolo informed him. “I was watching TV. There are several
derumbes that have closed the Gualaca – Bocas road.”

“
I was
afraid it was going to be a damned bad one. I hope I’m not totally
cut off. Manny has a hi-freak, but I don’t have a
receiver.”

“
I have
one. We can check with him. That will be Marko Boccini, better
known as Manny Mathews here. We have a few mutual friends. I won’t
do anything to blow his cover as I’m promised you won’t do anything
to blow mine.”