Clint Faraday Mysteries
Collection #2
4 books
© 2011 - 2012
by C. D. Moulton
Smashwords Edition
© 2012
all rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, either electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any other information retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder/publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to persons, living or dead, or events is purely coincidental unless otherwise stated.
Clint Faraday is a retired PI from Florida. He moved to Panama’ and became a neighbor with Judi Lum, an attractive Oriental woman he knew in Florida. She has become a great help in his cases. Though he was retired, he soon began to be called by the police in Panama’ for murder cases.
I base the characters and places in the series upon people I meet, places I travel, newspaper stories, personal experiences and just wondering why certain people acts as they do. I have lived in the Indigeno culture and find they are truly a wonderful society. There are flaws, of course, but that is true of any culture anywhere. There are certainly flaws in the material/capital oriented society in the states!
First three years I lived in Bocas del Toro Province on the Caribbean, though I traveled extensively. I now reside in David in Chiriqui Province. I find the Panamanian people to be among the most friendly and warmest people in the world. The four semi-separate cultures are the Caribbean Blacks, the Latinos, the Chinese and the Indios. In these times there are mixes of all types. most get along very well and respect the different cultures. It takes the influx of us gringos (it is not a derogatory word here) and Europeans to come here to criticize the cultures. The unpopularity of many are brought about by their arrogance and condescension. I find it inexcusable that so many come here with the attitude that the people will automatically be stupid and ignorant. they display their own stupidity and ignorance of cultural differences daily. There is no excuse for a person to come from the USA or England etc. and whine that these people won’t learn English. After all, they are spending their MONEY here!
This is not a money-oriented society. The language of Panama’ is Spanish. If you are going to live here, learn Spanish. If you are too good for that, go back where you came from. Luckily, for the most part the people here do not make group judgements. They form opinions on an individual basis. I don’t have to live with what you are.
So much for a private gripe. The fact is that there is far more individual freedom here than most places and they are a far more accepting people than I’ve encountered elsewhere. I was 68 years old when I came here and had never really felt at home anywhere. I wasn’t here two hours before I knew I was, at last, home.
Here are four shorter Clint Faraday books combined into one long one – more or less. I started with #5 because the first four were quite long in themselves.
C. D. Moulton, David, Chiriqui, Rep. de Panama’– February, 2012
About the author
CD was born in Lakeland, Florida. His education is in genetics and botany. He has traveled over much of the world, particularly when he was in music as a rock rhythm guitarist with some well-known bands in the late sixties and early seventies. He has worked as a high steel worker and as a longshoreman, clerk, orchidist, bar owner, salvage yard manager and landscaper – among other things.
CD began writing fiction in 1984 and has more than 115 books published as of this time in SciFi, murder, orchid culture and various other fields.
He now resides in Bocas del Toro and David, Panamá, where he continues research into epiphytic plants. He loves the culture of the indigenous people and counts a majority of his closer friends among that group. Several have “adopted” him as their father. He funds those he can afford through the universities where they have all excelled. “The Indios are very intelligent people, they are simply too poor (in material things and money. Culturally, they are very wealthy) to pursue higher education.”
CD loves Panamá and the people. He plans to spend the rest of his life in the paradise that is Panamá
- Estrelita Suarez V.
Clint Faraday mysteries #9
by C. D. Moulton
© 2011
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to persons, living or dead, or events is purely coincidental unless otherwise stated.
Clint is called by Sergio Sanchez, a good friend with the Policia Nacional in Bocas del Toro to help with a case of murder among some people he was having some trouble with. The trail leads to another murder, earlier, in Costa Rica. Investigating that leads to yet another in Mexico.
Is it a serial killer of some kind – or is there a very understandable motive?
Contents
Book nine: Follow the Blood
Follow the Blood
Clint Faraday, retired detective from Florida, USA, laid back in the hammock on his deck over Saigon Bay on Isla Colon in Bocas del Toro, Panamá. He sipped the coffee and waved across to Judi Lum, his attractive nextdoor neighbor. She had known him in Florida and met him again in Bocas. Clint had found her to be very useful in the detective work he sort of fell into in Panamá. She was above average intelligent and had a way to get information from people who didn’t know they’d given her any. She could act the perfect airhead around people who didn’t know her and seem not to even hear when they said things.
She waved back and went out onto her deck to check the epiphytic plants she, Clint, and their weird musician friend had collected. Dave was a botanist who was working on classification of epiphytic plants in Panamá, mostly orchids, but also rhipsalis, bromeliads, anthuriums and so forth.
He called across to ask if she wanted to go to the Zapatillas, a group of islands in the Bocas del Toro archipelago. She answered that she had to meet with two of the groups she was active in concerning Bocas Town.
Clint said he didn’t really want to go himself. He was just bored.
“That case on the coast out of Chiriqui Grande two weeks ago – and you’re bored already? That’s not even reasonable!”
Clint laughed. He did get bored easily when he wasn’t active. That was a basic reason he got in the PI business here. The police found they could work with him very well, so he was called in on murders and some kinds of fraud.
Speaking of which, his celular buzzed with a call from Sergio, a friend on the police force.
“Clint? Sanchez here.
“Are you free at the moment?”
“What you got, Serg?”
“A murder. Strange kinds of people. Things not quite adding up.”
“Where?”
“On the road to Changuinola north about two kilometers from the Ojo de Agua road. They were supposedly run off the road by a truck, but some people who were working on timber close saw it and said there was no truck to run them off.
“It seems the dead one, Wilber Stenson, wasn’t using a seat belt. The driver, Mark Stedmann, was. The car went into a tree on the passenger side. It did a lot of damage to that side of the car. Stenson was supposedly thrown into the windshield where he died almost instantly from severe skull fracture and brain damage.”
Clint took that in and said, “And?”
“The wound wasn’t from that flat a surface. The blood has been smeared onto the windshield in a strange manner.”
“Hmm.`Has been smeared’ on the glass?”
“Uh-huh. I didn’t let on that we third-world pretend Keystone Kops would even note such things.”
“You watch too many of those old movies,” Clint accused with a laugh. “Almirante?”
“I’ll have the truck at the water taxi.”
“I’ll come over in my own boat. At the end?”
“Fine.”
Clint sighed, then told himself he was bored so don’t complain if someone has something to break the boredom.
He called to Judi to say he was on the way to the mainland and didn’t know when he would get back. Keep an eye on things.
“Case?”
“Looks like it.”
“Matt! Be careful!”
“You watch too many old ... TV shows, too.”
She laughed.
Clint locked up the place and climbed into his boat. Next stop, Almirante.
Serg had the police truck waiting. The driver, Amos Tomas, said that Serg was waiting at the accident-that-was-no-accident scene. He arrived with a lot of traffic backed up while the tow-truck pulled the car onto the road to be carried in a slide-bed to the police compound, such as it was.
Sergio showed Clint a long series of digital photos of just about every inch of the scene. That was a great thing about a 4G card. They could literally take a couple thousand pictures.
The blood on the windshield was almost an obvious smear. The close-ups of the head wounds showed Clint he had been killed with a baseball bat or something like one. Very obviously, also, was that no flat windshield could produce those wounds.
Clint took a quick look into the car. The photos showed the crash bag on the driver’s side had deployed. There wasn’t one on the passenger side of that model. The passenger seatbelt was in the withdraw. There was a picture of the mechanism of the seat belt that showed it was damaged. The belt couldn’t be used. The papers showed the car was a rental so that was a very deliberate bit of damage.
Stedmann was a fairly large bullish and slightly fat man, maybe six two or three and three hundred ten pounds. He had dark medium length hair and brown eyes. He was wearing reading glasses in some pictures, Clint had noticed.
Sergio pointed to one picture of him with the hair partly in the sun and partly in shade. It was obviously dyed.
Clint singled out a picture that showed him from a slightly back angle.
“Wig,” Clint said and pointed to the hair just above the right ear. The color difference showed plainly on one spot.
Sergio grinned. “A small bit of alcohol when I dabbed some on the cut ear. It didn’t look right to me at the time.”
Clint was always impressed by the quiet subtle way Sergio carried on an investigation. The very professional and complete way.
“Steddman has been taken to the hospital for observation, but the air bag and belt left him with no injuries. He scratched the ear deliberately I am sure to cause us to believe that he was slightly injured. He complained that his back and neck hurt. Sometimes he would favor the right arm, sometimes the left....”
“So he wasn’t in any pain,” Clint agreed. “I think I should speak with the poor guy to be sure he isn’t too seriously hurt.”
“Yes, please. I am to return to Changuinola immediately. Now the automobile is on the way my job is done here. You are requested by the Policia Nacional to assist in traduciendo. Mr. Stedmann does not speak well the Spanish..”
“And you don’t speak English.”
“Not that Mr. Stedmann knows.”
Clint and Sergio got into the police truck with several of the accident scene investigators. Sergio got reports that there was nothing wrong with the car before the crash. Everything was functioning properly.
“Stedmann says he was run off the road by a truck. One of the dirt haulers that come regularly along this part of the road. Testigos state very plainly that there was no truck. It was at seven twelve when it was reported by Stedmann as having occurred within a very few minutes. Less than three, according to him. The trucks do not move before seven thirty. They belong to the company or the nation and are not taken to the homes of the drivers, as the independent truckers do. I have checked with the man who watches the Ojo de Agua project trucks and find there were none other than those on the road from there and they would have to have come from there to run Mr. Stedmann off the road.
“I did not immediately arrest Mr. Stedmann because I know how you work on these things and know you will want to investigate. All such investigations by yourself have proven very helpful to my department in the past. This is a way to have you volunteer without necessity of my requesting formally.”
“Oh, why?”
“Because I seem to remember that the friend of Mr. Stedmann, Mr. Oliver Haverton, who Mr. Stedmann listed as a contact upon entering Panamá, was involved in a fatal accident in Costa Rica a week or so ago.”
Clint nodded. Sergio was probably the only officer in the area who would automatically remember such details.
They got to Changuinola and went to the police station. Sergio would want Clint to have all the information available before meeting Stedmann. He would supply information about the group traveling together and the contacts listed by all of them when they arrived in Panamá. Stedmann was in a group looking for investment in supply-side construction materials and machinery. They owned a semi-large dealership in the states and had several exclusive contracts with heavy equipment manufacturers.
Gloria and Wilber Stenson were mostly in plastic and aluminum materials.
Donald Wentworth was in fastening materials. (“Like what?” Clint asked. Sergio handed him papers. Nails, special glues, window bracket holders, acrylic glues, and other such things.) His wife, Wanda, had died a month and a half ago in Mexico from some kind of infection. Clint raised an eyebrow and went on.
Harry and Faith Richards. Molding forms for concrete or composites.
Ben and Lilian Banks. Steel materials. (Re-rod, security doors, etc.)
Anne Haverton, electrical. Her husband, Oliver, was deceased in a whitewater rafting accident in Costa Rica. Their contacts were mostly legitimate large construction companies. Fanny Martinez, Changuinola, was listed as a friend who was supplying habitations. Francisco Arauz was a friend of the Banks. Arturo Serano was a friend of Anne Sanders and her local lawyer. Enrique and Eladio Flores, lawyers and close friends of Stedmann.
Not a lot that was unusual – except that this was the third death among that group in two months and they kept on with the business trip?
“What information can you get about Haverton from Costa Rica?”
“Very little. It was a supposed accident in a river near Nicaragua. The question was why such an accident could happen there. There are many rafters in worse seasons and there has never been a fatal accident there. They listed it as a probably unfortunate accident that happened because the man was drinking too heavily to be on such an adventure.” Sergio took a couple of pages from a file and handed them to Clint. They said almost exactly that.
“Know anything about the death in Mexico?”
“Other than that it was in Oaxaca and was the result of an infection, no. It seems the group was the same as here except Stedmann and Faith Richards weren’t along then. A man called Frank Carlysle and a woman called Georgia Manson were with them. They went back to the states, Texas, and Stedmann joined the others there for the rest of the trip.”
Clint nodded and asked for permission to call the Costa Rican police for information. Sergio said to make any calls he felt were necessary, but they wouldn’t tell him anything.
Which was true. They seemed to have an attitude.
Clint sighed.
“Will you follow the money on this one, as they say in the movies?”
Clint nodded, then shook his head. “I think it’ll be more productive to follow the blood. I don’t like the looks of this.
“Serg, this could be some kind of serial killer. They all have a lot of money, I think. This may be some nut killing off people to show he’s smarter than the cops or something as strange. It would be Stedmann, but that would mean he didn’t kill ... I don’t get it.”
“I think I’d like to see what kind of contract they have among themselves. It could prove interesting and informative.”
“I can’t argue that one! It could be behind the whole mess – or not.”
“Whatever. I have to go to interview Stedmann now. Would you be so kind as to volunteer to traducir?”
Clint gave him the finger. They went to the truck.
“This is Donald Wentworth and this is Lilian Banks,” Stedmann introduced. “They’re traveling with our little group and came to see what they could do to help. Our little trip seems jinxed.”
Clint and Sergio shook hands and gave their names. Sergio asked Clint, in Spanish, to please translate what was said as his English was bad. Clint noted that Lilian seemed to understand Spanish, so said, “Glad to. You don’t speak Spanish?”
“I speak only a very little,” Lilian answered. “I haven’t heard Mark say anything past `cerveza’ and `buenos Dias’ and that kind of thing.”
Clint nodded and said Sergio had asked that he translate.
“First, what’s the skinny? You hurt or just shaken up by this?”
“I’m alright except I’ll have some muscle pain for a couple of days and have to be careful about my neck,” Stedmann replied. “I guess I just lucked out. My number’s not up quite yet.
“I tend to fatalism. I think when it’s your time to go there’s nothing you can do about it. If it isn’t your time, it isn’t.”
“No muy serioso,” Clint said to Sergio.
“What, as exactly as you can remember it, happened?” Clint asked.
“I don’t know. I was driving toward – David, actually. We have an appoin ... great Scott! Lilian, please call Jorge Franciso and tell him why we aren’t getting to David right about now!”
Lilian looked shocked and went out.
“Anyhow, we were talking about a big job a company in David’s doing that has connections with the project here – we supply all kinds of materials and equipment for large construction jobs, you see. This is a working vacation for us. We’ve come all the way down through Central America.
“We were right there at that curve and a Walker sixteen – that’s a dirt hauler truck – came across the center right at us. I went toward the side of the road. The wheel dropped of into a soft rut or something. I remember yelling to hold on, then nothing until I came to with the car having that tree ... Ollie seemed dead or definitely in bad shape. I climbed out and called the emergency number. I got woozy for a few minutes. I remember some people coming from the side of the road a little ways back, then the police.
“You know the rest. The officer was there.”
“Estas hablando. Un Walker sixteen camion, afuera la calle, no recorder mucho mas.”
“Walker diez y seis?” Sergio asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Bueno. Continuar.”
“Anything else?” Clint asked.
“That’s about it,” Stedmann answered. Clint said that’s all he remembers.
“Okay,” Sergio said with a sigh and a shake of the head. “Es cierto is un Walker diez y seis? Tu conoce problema con esse.”
“Are you absolutely certain it was a Walker sixteen?” Clint asked. “There aren’t a lot of those here. Too big for that stretch of road. Too heavy. It must have been empty and traveling too fast for the conditions. Maybe they can find it pretty fast.”
“Well, it was a sixteen or twelve, but I’m pretty sure it was sixteen. It’s possible the fact it was barreling at me and I exaggerated it in my mind, but I really don’t think so. It was awfully fast.”
“Mas cierto. Possiblemente is doce, pero el no crea.”
“Gracias por su testimonio.”
“Thanks. He’ll make the report.”
“We have to go to David. Today, if possible.”
“Necessario esta por David hoy, si posible.”
“Otros si, pero el es por aqui hasta reportar. Hoy? Posiblemente, pero probablamente una dia.”
“The others can go. You have to stay around to formalize your statement. Possibly today, but probably tomorrow.”
“I can live with that. Thanks.”
They left. Lilian Banks was talking to a man in the waiting room. She introduced Harry Richards. Harry said this was terrible! They were cursed!
Clint said life seemed that way at times. They certainly had their share of bad luck.
He went on to the station with Sergio. “I think I want to go to Costa Rica and poke around a bit. It shouldn’t take long.”
Sergio said he’d have him taken to the border and slipped through without delay. He wouldn’t be delayed coming back because he would be carrying National Police papers. He took a form out and filled it in, then signed it and had a man take it to the court to have a stamp put on it. Clint went to Almirante in the police truck and got his backpack with clothes and such, then was back in Changuinola for the papers, then to Sixola, then into Costa Rica, where he got a bus to Limon. He went on to a little town called Piedras (rocks) near the Nicaraguan border. He arrived just at dusk, so got a room in the only pension there, ate a reasonably good meal at the restaurant and went to one of the three local bars to ask a few questions.
“Los gringos quien esta por whitewater. Uno morio’.”
“I speak English and book all the whitewater trips,” the tall thin man said. “Octavio Arrenz.”
“Clint Faraday. I have to know about that trip and why anyone, drunk or not, would die along that stretch.”
“Suspicious as hell to me, too. No one was drunk when they left here. It wasn’t but about four kilometers down the river. I don’t think anyone could drink much crossing the first rill. That meant he got too drunk to navigate in ten minutes? Bullshit!”
“Yeah. They had another socalled accident in Panamá. Another one’s dead.”
“That Faith woman there? The looker. Bimbo body, but MENSA mind?”
“Think she’s got her sexy ass in it?” Clint had never seen her. This was the kind of information he needed.
“Well, she acts like an airhead’s airhead, but things slip into it that make it very damned sure obvious that she’s smart as all hell. She can’t resist getting a zinger in on some of the others when she gets the chance. That takes a really quick fucking mind.
“I don’t know if she was flirting. It seemed like it.”
“Promising looks, then she’s insulted if you take her up on it. Too many like that anymore.”
“Yeah. I got my rusty ass burned enough that I act like I don’t get the fucking hint.”
Clint bought another beer. Two bucks apiece here, sixty cents in Panamá.
“I have some suspicions. Things happened in other places that they let little things slip about.,” Clint confided.
“Something damned sure as hell happened in Mexico or Guatemala! I heard that Lily woman saying she was worried that they might get the same kind of thing in the countries down here,” he said. “We’re all so backward and prehistoric in these rat-hole places. Fucking enough to make you want to smack her in the fucking puss!”
“Too many gringos like that. We all have to live with what people think of us because of them.”
He nodded. They chatted for a little while and Clint started talking to an attractive girl. She turned out to be very interested in him, too. Fifty bucks worth of interested.
Clint told her he didn’t screw around on his girlfriend. Maybe some other time. She lost interest. Clint went to the pension and to bed.
What to do now? He had the information he needed from Costa Rica.
Clint looked over the papers from the court. He could go anywhere with government sanction from Mexico to Brazil.
So he’d go to Mexico. Oaxaca. He called for a flight and took a bus, then a cab to the airport in San Jose’. He was landing in Oaxaca at dusk. Seemed like that’s when he got anywhere.
This would be different. He couldn’t get his information in a little local pub in Oaxaca.
Good lord! He didn’t tell Sergio he was going to Mexico!
He called and Sergio said he suspected that when Clint didn’t come back. Stedmann was allowed to go to David about four o’clock. Judi Lum said she had some information about things that Clint might be interested in knowing.
Clint called her. She said there was some talk in Bocas Town about the supposed accident on the Changuinola road. It seemed Dona Sanchocho’s husband, Juan, was cutting nispero not five hundred meters from the socalled accident. The man in the car had lied when he said there was a truck to run him off the road. There was no truck. He told the police that and gave a statement, but they let the driver go. Probably paid off.
“Paid off? Sergio?” Clint asked.
“Exactly what I told them. There’s no way anyone paid off Sergio Sanchez.
“I figure you’re investigating that accident? That’s why your phone’s turned off?”
“Yes, I’m investigating it. No, my phone’s not turned off. I was in Costa Rica yesterday and am in Mexico now. Home tomorrow, I hope.
“See what the scuttle’s about among that bunch, Okay?”
“Other than that one of them is a sex-bomb, I haven’t heard much. I’ll listen and suggest.”
“Thanks, Judi. This is kind of strange. I’ll get back as soon as I can.”
“Clint? Manny’s got connections that could help in Mexico.”
“Thanks! I hadn’t thought of that. If I can’t find anything on my own I’ll call him.”
They chatted a bit, then Clint went to a good restaurant for a mixed mariscos dish something like paella. He would go to the police station in the morning.
“I did not believe what they told me, about her cutting herself on some shells in the ocean in Mar Vista and that it became infected during the drive to here, then she took some antibiotics from a farmacia, but she wasn’t conscious much in the hospital here. Her nurse, Carmencita Vilas, said she kept trying to tell her something, but she didn’t make sense and she didn’t speak Spanish enough to make her understand what she was saying,” Sgt. Mario Cestas read from the report. “That was from Officer Cortez, who makes out police reports when someone dies.”
“Thanks,” Clint said. “Can I find him to ask a question or two?”
“He will be at ... (he looked at a work sheet) the morgue. He is talking with the family of a lady who died of too much alcohol. It is a great problem here.”
He explained where to find the morgue and gave him a short note that Clint was authorized to make inquiries into past deaths. Clint found the morgue and waited outside until Cortez finished counseling the family.
“I need to know whatever you remember about this case.” He handed Cortez the report. Cortez raised an eyebrow.
“You said you didn’t believe them?”
“They seemed to be placing a false face. What has happened?”
“Two more in that group have died under suspicious circumstances.”
He nodded and sighed.
“That woman who looks like a movie queen was impatient that they had to get to Guatemala to meet another partner while two of the group had to get back to Texas? Her business partner and friend had died the night before and it was an inconvenience, no more? They had an infection like that, a resistant strain of staphylococcus, and bought some expired antibiotic cream from a local farmacia? They had already made arrangements for the body to be sent back to Texas for cremation? A prepaid funeral and cremation is rather common today, but the family and friends generally go to the funeral, at the least.
“The HUSBAND, `Donny’, they called him, only was concerned about some kind of contract she was supposed to sign and was wondering if perhaps he could sign it with a copy of her death certificate?
“I made the certificate to say she had died of the staphylococcus infection, but there were serious questions as to how and why she became infected and not treated immediately. I noted on the report that I didn’t believe them.”
“The nurse said she tried to tell her something?”
“I ... yes, I noted that. You may speak with her. I will translate.”
“Yo hablo poco bien el espaniol. Mil gracias por sus consideracion.”
“Muy buenos dias.”
Clint looked up the nurse. She wasn’t on duty, but the receptionist gave him her address and celular number. He called her and arranged to meet her for lunch in the Buena Vista Hotel restaurant.
“Miss Vilas? I’m, er, llamame Clint.”
“Cita. Que desea?”
(translated) “I have to find what I can about a Wanda Wentworth who died of a staph infection here a couple of weeks ago. You reported that she tried to tell you something? Can you remember anything about it at all?”
“I understood only a very few words. `Killed Sammy’ and `Houston Texas’ and `Veronica’. I think she was saying she had killed someone or that someone there had killed someone named Sammy. I think Veronica was ... I don’t know.
“Clint, they are very strange and cold people who talk only of money and contracts while one of their friends and partners is dying right in front of them. Why was that resistant staphylococcus even in this part of Mexico? There had been two cases in Mexico City last year. Never here or in Mar Vista. They bought some antibiotic cream in a pharmacy that was expired and didn’t seek a doctor when it didn’t work? They drove all the way here with her unconscious part of the time in one of their cars?
“Excuse the vulgarity. Bullshit!”
“Two more have died. Both under what we call questionable circumstances. I’m trying to find what the hell is going on. I don’t personally care if they kill each other off to the last one. I want to know why.”
She nodded. “Perhaps Mario of the police will be able to find some information about Sammy or Veronica. His cousin is working for the police department in Houston, Texas.”
“Thanks, Cita. This is a big help. I’d ask for a date if I didn’t have to go. You’re a beautiful woman.”
She laughed. “You would have to first garner permission from my husband!”
They chatted a few minutes, then Clint headed back to the police station.
“You can get the info?” Clint asked.
“I can try. I think, yes,” Mario answered. “I was more than a little concerned and have asked that Harry find what he can, but there was no urgency. Your papers indicate that I may treat this as an official inquiry. Texas is cooperative in many things.”
He used the computer to call Houston, ask for official connection with Sgt. Harold Guterez, and explained what he wanted if he could find any connection with the people on the list he gave two weeks ago.
I have already found that the name, Frank Carlysle, was probably who is in question. He was killed in a mugging a month ago. The fourteenth. There wasn’t any way to find who killed him. He ran errands for the SfTSpec, for whom he was delivering a package when killed. Veronica could possibly be Veronica Mayfield, the girlfriend of a man in the group who wasn’t there in Oaxaca. Markus Stedmann. She has disappeared three days later. It is reported by the woman who runs the apartment building where she was staying that she is hiding from someone, perhaps a mean suitor or past boyfriend. There is no more I can discover.
“The SfTSpec?” Clint asked.
“I think perhaps the name of their company. I will see.” He ran a Google search on the name. It was a company registered to that group and six others. “I imagine it will take perhaps three days to gather all the information about the company and the partners from Texas. I will give you the internet code for my machine and will arrange to transfer any details to your own computer.
“I must say that computers have proven a great boon to police work in some ways. So much is there. It is merely a matter of knowing where to find it.”
Clint was about to ask him to check further on that company, but was, apparently, anticipated. He used the computers quite a bit, but this was the first time he actually saw an official police investigation use Google! Now he would continue the search and send him the results.
Hell, the information is there. Use it.
He said his thanks and goodbyes and headed for the airport. He would get to Panamá City at eleven the following day.
He went to the hotel and got a good night’s sleep after calling Sergio with what he had learned.
“Well, I’ve learned enough that you can freeze their movements,” Clint told Sergio. “It would be a lot of lawyers and affidavits and such in the states. Here, you just arrest them.”
“I’ll have an order that they may not leave Panamá City until the investigation here is completed.”
“I think maybe I’ll just sit back and wait for the information to be sent to me. It’ll take a few days.
“How long can you hold them?”
“For as long as the investigation takes. I will simply tell them they may remain free, but will be arrested and held in carcel should they be so stupid as to try to leave the country. It would be seen as a sign of guilt by the courts.”
“I can use a day or two for fishing and such. Going out of Panamá tires the hell out of me.”
“I will inform you if there is any progress or detail that should come to your attention.”
“Thanks, Serg.”
They talked a bit more, then Clint went to his place, spent what was left of the day with Judi and Ben, a neighbor. Dave was in town so they went to El Ultimo Refugio to see him play with some of the local musicians. It was a pleasant night, but Clint went home early.
In the morning Clint went to all the regular stops to talk with the regulars. Manny and family (Manny Mathews, actually Marko Bocinni, a retired godfather Clint helped find a way to raise his family without interference by the old mob in California) came to shop a bit for groceries. Clint told him about the case. Manny said he would put out a notice for information. Clint said he would ask if it came to that point. He may get it without the hassle.
“I seem to have a nagging feeling that I know something about that bunch. The name of the company seems familiar, somehow. Maybe it’s connected, but not very strongly.”
They talked about a lot of things, then Clint went out to visit friend who lived at The Bluffs, then he went fishing for about an hour for his supper. It was a pleasant laid-back day in paradise.
He went to Isla Carenero to see how friends there were doing that evening until about eleven, then home to grab a good sleep. He got up at six in the morning, back to his normal schedule.
Manny had sent a bit of new information on the computer. It seemed there were some unanswered questions about that company and some of the people who ran it. Someone had disappeared a couple of years ago and there was a stink, but nothing was ever proven on any of them. They claimed Robert Mesmer had absconded with a large sum they couldn’t file charges on through legal channels – which meant they were what’s commonly called “Unreported income” in those circles.
There were some things to be learned from Atlantic City and Chicago. He would have someone dig a bit for his own curiosity.
This thing was stretching out into the past. Clint decided he would try to find what had happened to anyone in that company from its inception. He wanted to see exactly what this was about. Was it some kind of survivor’s club where one or two of them were trying to see that they were the survivors? Were more taken in along the way?
Clint remembered a book he’d read long ago called The Hunter’s Club. It was a group who decided hunting big game was getting boring. The standard targets had no way to fight back. A shot from a high-powered rifle from 200 yards wasn’t much of a challenge. They decided the only “worthwhile” game was man. The reactions of these people showed it may actually be some sick kind of game they were playing.
Sergio called and said the evidence they had now, including the witnesses and type of physical damage was enough to convict Stedmann. Should he proceed in that, or wait?
“Serg, there’s something strange and sinister about this thing. Let’s take a time out and watch them. I’m gathering some evidence that this may be ... what it’s beginning to look like. That’s very scary.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s see how far back this thing goes if we can.”
“We know about Costa Rica. We can’t prove anything there except the connection. One and one is still two.”
“Depends on the math you’re using. It can be a lot of things. I don’t think just two.”
“Two we know about. It is our basic pattern.”
“Three, then. Mexico’s more certain than Costa Rica.”
“You know a lot more than I do about this. They aren’t going anywhere. We’ll take, as you say, a time out.”
Clint called Manny when Sergio hung up to ask if anything new had come up. Manny said there seemed to be some kind of attempt to hide that company from public view.
They chatted about various things, then Clint went to his computer. A Google search followed by a Yahoo! search proved to be much more interesting. SfTSpec was a company started, according to three hours of searching, in 1998 by a group of people who owned businesses having to do with construction and home repairs. It also had a member who had a heavy equipment parts distributor company. There were twenty original members. Clint did a search on all of them to find little except that Susan and Kyle Long, who owned a lumber mill and a chain of retail outlets for building materials had died in a car wreck when their brakes failed in the mountains in Colorado in December of 1998. There was some suspicion the car had been purposely damaged, but nothing was found in the investigation. There was no apparent motive for anyone in the area to want to harm them. The possessions were in a corporate holding so no individual would profit very greatly. All the members of the corporation were independently wealthy.
Clint sat back to think. There were a number of questions to ask a computer from a number of angles. It was a time-consuming task. (God! He was thinking in those terms?)
Well, onward and upward. Or downward. Or sideways. How many?