Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (87 page)

He would wait for Manolo’s report.

Bernard Blakley, her father, had died in a
suspicious fire in October of 1998. He had a lot of dealings with
everyone and was suspected of laundering money for certain drug
cartels. He had a few legit deals, but his wealth seemed to be
because he was clever about manipulating stocks to where he could
do a hostile takeover of a company in trouble. Not much else was
known about him.

That twelve years that kept coming up was
beginning to make Clint wonder. He went into town. Ben and Judy
were talking in front of Ben’s place, so they joined him. They met
Dave at the Golden Grill, then went to the Bahia and talked Gina
into going with them to The Gran Muralla Chinese restaurante for a
delicious meal. Gina noted that Clint seemed to be in another
world.

“
I’m
finding out a lot about Avenidas and Blakley,” he said, deciding it
would have to come out sooner or later. Might as well make it now.
“Seems they both knew your father for years.”

“
Raul
did. A little. I mentioned that when I told you why I was coming
here,” she answered. “I don’t know much about his dealings. Blakley
might have known him. She looked just slightly familiar. I might
have seen her with Father years ago.

“
Father
was into some pretty shady things. I think he did some work for the
drug people. He was scared of something for a couple of months
before he and Mother died. He said that it was business and that
Mother and I were better off not knowing. It was something that had
put him into notice – he called it that – of a big drug lord named
Ochoa. He died and left everything to my Mother, who died at the
same time, leaving everything to him in her will. I got everything
as surviving heir, but we haven’t been able to find anything except
the house and a bank account that was just more than twenty
thousand dollars, US. I’ve managed to go through that and had to
get a job or get married, which is the Colombian girl’s only way to
security.

“
I don’t
want to get married yet. I was offered a job by Raul at a time I
needed it, so here I am.”

“
How did
your parents die?” Judy asked.

“
They
were on their way to Bogotá and ran off the mountain when a truck
was coming down the road on the wrong side. Its brakes had failed
and the driver was in the hospital for four months because of being
hurt when the truck went into the side of the mountain farther
down.

“
It was
real. It wasn’t a setup or murder. I had that checked out very
thoroughly. It happened in September of ninety eight and was
investigated completely.

“
I
thought then, and still do, that Father had a lot of money tied up
somewhere. I know I saw him with big sacks of money several times.
I was in the garden one time when a man gave him a sack of money so
heavy he could hardly carry it. He put it in the bodega and I snuck
in to see when he and Mother went to shop. It was hundred dollar
bills. I couldn’t guess at how much, but it had to be a million
dollars. The next day another man came and collected the sack and
left.

“
I was
eleven years old. I didn’t think much about it because Father
always said Mother and I were not to concern ourselves about
business things. Ever. It was the father’s job to provide for the
family and the mother’s job to care for the house and family. They
were separate parts of why a marriage worked. We got lectures on
our proper roles. He was very good to us. Mother said a thousand
times that he was a better provider and more caring than any other
man in Colombia. I never once questioned anything he did. Looking
back, I can see where maybe I should have.

“
You can
see why I’m so ... confused and worried about what’s happened here.
Raul and Blakley, then that money in a chest full of jewels.
Avenidas once showed me a sword with fifteen jewels he said was
very old and worth probably a million dollars. He was mixed up with
Father in business. I saw millions of dollars in cash kept in
sacks. Money ended up in the pirate chest, which seemed to throw
Raul into a rage. Blakley was wearing some jewelry when she was
killed that could have come from that chest.

“
I don’t
know how any of it’s connected. I wonder if ... I don’t even know
what to wonder about.

“
That’s
my true story. I can’t believe how naive I was. I never added two
and two because I guess I didn’t want to rock the boat.”

“
I’ll
jump to a few conclusions myself!” Judy cried. “If you weren’t so
naive you’d probably be dead. Maybe Raul has you here where he can
watch you because that money and chest might belong to
you!”

“
Yeah,”
Dave added. “Have the good sense not to wonder about it until Clint
finds out a few things.”

“
This
gets weirder and weirder,” Clint said.

“
You keep
saying that,” Judy said. “Let’s drop it for tonight,
Okay?”

Dave and
Ben went to The Plank a little later. Judy, Clint and Gina went to
The Toro Loco. Judy met a good friend and stayed there when Clint
and Gina went to The Rip Tide to talk with Neil and Cathi. The rest
of the night was very pleasant. Gina stayed at the hotel, which was
the only sour note to Clint. He stopped at some little bar for a
beer on his way home where he talked to some people, but didn’t
even finish the beer. It wasn’t going to be as pleasant a night as
the last couple had been. He was a little fuzzy about the later
part. He didn’t think he’d had
that
much to drink.

Dark Day

Okay. That was possibly a very important
fact. Gina’s parents had died in September of ‘98, definitely not
murdered, then Blakley died in October, as definitely murdered.
Avenidas started selling antique pirate treasure in ... exactly
when? He had to know that date. It was either vastly important or
incidental. Nothing between.

When he got up to a dark drizzle he checked
the comp to find Manolo had sent some information. Much of it was
covered by Manny’s information. Blakley had been laundering for two
major cartels and was trusted by them. He was knocked over, but NOT
by them. They lost a few million because of that and had tried to
find who and why. They weren’t good at investigation. They always
ordered people to talk and they talked. It wasn’t always accurate
information, though it was too often acted upon as though it
was.

Halverson was a sort of placement man. He
took the money from one place and put it in another from which he
arranged for it to go to a third place, minus commissions and fees,
before returning to the original sparkling clean. His fees were
reputed to have made him something over ten million dollars a year
for some years. There was talk that some of it was missing at his
death, that he had been ripped off for a lot more and that Blakley
and some stockbroker were the ones ripping him off.

He had once put a lot of money in a treasure
hunt a lot like those things in Florida. There was a hint that
something was found – because a few pieces showed up. It seemed to
stop when he died, except for three pieces that showed up five
years ago. There might be hundreds of millions still hidden
somewhere.

Avenidas, the information was mostly what he
had. He had sold the artifacts in late ‘97 and early ‘98 that they
could say definitely came from him.

Clint sat back and thought. He was building a
scenario that may be a mile away from the facts for every dollar in
that chest.

Blakley and Halverson had a semi-partnership
deal in money laundering. They became rich with it. Halverson had
financed a treasure hunt that had paid off. He wanted a way to keep
the find safe until he could dispose of it. He had let Blakley in
on it and Blakley had gone with him to see what there was to see.
Fifty years ago there was nothing and very few people on Isla
Colón. They decided to keep a bit of the cash they had with the
treasure as insurance against bad times. Everything was according
to plan for quite a while. They both had plenty of money and didn’t
need the treasure or the cash they had hidden. They let it lay.

Then the Halversons died. Now where did it
go? That part was probably fairly close.

Okay. Halversons are dead, so ... Gina would
inherit everything. There were maps or something left for her to
find, so Blakley found it first. That was why there were no notes
or registrations or such for the offshore accounts. Blakley stole
them from Gina.

How?

Gina was about 15 years old – and was in the
states going to school! Blakley simply went into the house and took
what he wanted.

How was Avenidas involved? How did he know
about the treasure? How did he get the items?

Halverson had financed a treasure hunt and
Avenidas was the stockbroker who reputedly ripped him off. That
would fit. Avenidas didn’t know where the treasure was, he simply
had some items Blakley gave him, probably as a pay-off to keep
quiet. Avenidas did NOT kill Blakley. He would lose his final
chance at the treasure that way. He didn’t know how to find it.

So – who did kill him? It would be whoever
ended up with the treasure, which was Betina.

Another supposition. Blakley got those maps
and papers and took them home. Betina found them. She knocked her
old man off herself. That would fit very nicely, thank you very
much!

Now Avenidas was really in a fix. The money
from the sale of the artifacts wouldn’t last forever and he had no
clue as to where the stuff was. He didn’t have access to those
offshore accounts. He was about to end up with an empty basket.
What could he do?

He could see that Betina was throwing money
she couldn’t have around like she had a never-ending supply. Watch
her! Sooner or later she would go after the treasure.

She came to Bocas. He’d had an office there
for years. He came to Bocas. He brought Gina over because ... he
had something that gave her rights to that treasure. She could
collect fifty percent of its value by turning it over to Panamá. He
was the stockbroker who had arranged financing, so could charge her
twenty percent. Twenty percent of millions was a lot of money.

He wouldn’t have killed Betina, then. She had
to lead him ... but the treasure was already gone! Someone had made
an anonymous call about a body buried where the chest was.

Betina was going to claim rights and get
half? What happened ... except that there was ... no. The chest was
already found when she was killed. What had happened that made it
necessary to get rid of her?

The cash in the chest! It was added to that
chest before Betina was ten years old. She couldn’t claim the
treasure without explaining the cash. She couldn’t explain the
cash, which wasn’t too difficult to get around – but she couldn’t
hope to explain why she knew about the chest. She had come here
before Avenidas and was already acting suspiciously, so a claim of
not knowing about it would fail.

It looked like a rage killing. It was!

Now. How to get Avenidas?

He had to learn a lot more about Avenidas and
Blakley. He had what was needed for Halverson. Halverson was the
type who accepted the total responsibility for his family. The
family very obviously almost worshiped him. He was a very good
father, if not much else.

What about Blakley? Was he a good father?

Clint could assume he was not. She wouldn’t
have killed him if he was. He called Manolo and asked if he could
find details on Blakley as a family man. Manolo said he had that,
but didn’t include it because he didn’t think it was the kind of
information Clint could use to any purpose.

“
You
don’t know!” Clint replied. “This is a weird mess. That might be
behind a good part of it.”

“
His wife
left him shortly after Betina was born. She ran away with a guy she
claimed was at least a man, not a cheating snake in the grass. She
wasn’t any prize. She left Betina with him when the kid was less
than a year old. She was raised by nannies, several of whom said he
was a real monster. When he died she actually said she would give
whoever planted him a million dollars reward. She spent her life
hating men. She said she was going to use all that money he got to
make more. She had learned that from him.

“
In other
words, he would never make husband and father of the
year.”

“
You know
she killed him?” Clint asked.

“
I
suspect she paid someone to do it.”

“
I think
she did it.”

“
I damned
well wouldn’t be surprised.”

“
Thanks,
Manolo. I owe you one.”

They chatted a few minutes, then Clint sat
back, shook his head, sighed and went to his computer. He had to
find a way to connect it to Avenidas if only because, that way,
Gina might get something out of it. Regardless of what happened
later, her father found the treasure. She didn’t have a clue as to
what was going on. She was only nine or ten years old, so couldn’t
be held responsible in any way. She obviously didn’t know anything
about any treasure chest and she as obviously had no least idea
concerning the cash in that chest.

Betina had all the secrets, but she was now
out of the equation. For the future. She was most of the equation
until she ended up cut to ribbons.

Nice scenario. Too bad it only fit in pieces.
Something was missing. Something big. Clint was sure Raul Avenidas
killed Betina Blakley. Everything else almost fit. Like a .357
shell in a .38. It worked, but there was a slight misfit. It would
throw a lot of residue. The aim would be off just a bit.