Clint Faraday Mysteries Collection B :This Job is Murder Collector's Edition (3 page)

Clint looked around at his location and the
house he had built and grinned to himself. He had probably paid at
least three times what it was worth when he was told about the
super-great deal available by one of those “friends.”

Trouble now was that Clint was out of
suspects. He went out toward the end of the island where it was
pretty isolated to talk with some of his friends there. They didn’t
know much about any of it. They might have seen the dead guy around
somewhere, but how would they know? They didn’t even know what he
looked like. The police had asked them about it, but didn’t have a
picture or even a good description. “Have you ever seen the dead
guy we found?” and not even be able to say what he looked like,
whether he was a black, Indio, gringo, or what? How old was he? 17
or 70?

Clint had to agree that would be pointless,
but he knew Sergio’s methods. That stuff would be covered later. If
he got anyone to say the wrong thing he would know that one knew
more than he was telling. It could save weeks of investigating to
have someone make that one little slip.

The eight or nine year old kids saw things
that would open other things up a bit. He did learn that a boat had
come to sit in a little cove when the police boats went in. It
stayed there until the watcher boat at the mouth of the bay went to
search more back inside, then left. That led to the father saying
he saw it, but didn’t want to get involved. That could be dangerous
to his family. Clint said he would never be mentioned in any
way.

It was a 22 foot white and green boat with a
center console and had a canopy that was taken down when it was in
the cove. It was a blue plastic cover that would show. There were
three people in the boat. All men. It went around the end of the
island and headed more or less straight in. It didn’t go toward
Bocas. One of the men had a gun. It may have been an AK-47, but
they didn’t see it close and weren’t really concerned or they would
have found out more. They didn’t tell the police. That would be
dangerous. Clint would never let it be known who told him anything.
The police; they could trust Sergio, but if Sergio knew soon
everyone would know and they would know who Sergio talked to.
Sergio had to file reports that others could read.

Clint gave all the kids cookies he kept in
his boat for that reason, thanked all of them, then headed back to
Bocas. This was a break. The drug runner wasn’t picked up by anyone
on either of the islands. They went straight toward the mainland so
could have been heading to Popa. The one who tortured and killed #1
was on that boat. That meant the boat was out there to kill #1 and
got an opportunity to make something with the drug boat. Maybe the
runner was body #2. He would have offered them something valuable
for their taking him to shore away from Bocas or observation.

Then he would be stupid not to have made
whatever he promised unavailable before he was on the mainland and
safe. He wasn’t body #2. Unless.... No. Someone known as Carlos was
body #2, not some drug runner who had probably never been there
before. Definitely not to the mainland.

Clint headed in. The runner would have been
taken to Tierra Oscura. It was the only way to get him near a road
with that storm making everyone be home. He would have been seen
and noted if they went ashore anywhere else where their passenger
could get to a road. Everyone was watching the bay. The tone of the
light and the direction and power of the wind told them a lot more
facts about an approaching storm than any weatherman on TV possibly
could.

He took care of what he had waiting, e-mail
and such at home, then fueled his boat from the tank he kept at his
place and headed to Tierra Oscura.

No one knew who might have come in the night
to Tierra Oscura. They were all inside or working to secure things
for the next wave to come through. A couple heard the boat come in
and heard what seemed like a small argument, then whoever it was
left by the road. He got a taxi that was there from taking Lydia
home. Clint said that would help. He talked to Lydia. She said the
man who took the taxi called to it from down the road. She did hear
him ask how much to take him to a bank and bring him back.

That meant he was from Panamá. He had to get
to a bank to use the ATM. That would be in Almirante – if it had
ever been fixed. It had sat since Christmas with a brick thrown
through it. He might have to go to Changuinola.

Clint asked if she heard the answer. She
wasn’t sure, but she thought it was more than sixty dollars. The
man had yelled something about sixty dollars like he didn’t believe
it, but he did take the taxi.

Changuinola and back, barring obstructions or
something. Two hours. Double the regular rate because of the storm.
Half the time if he went by boat to Bocas. He didn’t want to do
that. That meant the carrier came back in about two hours to
collect.

He was a Latin man, about 5'10", strong, had
longish hair. That was all she noticed. He wore a lot of flashy
rings and gold chains. She remembered that because he left them
with somebody at the dock before he got the taxi. Maybe he was
wearing those camouflage pants and a dark shirt.

Clint had found, years ago, to ask the
minimum and let them remember the rest without a lot of pressure.
The pressure would make them forget. We all notice a lot more about
things than we realize.

How to find the taxi?

Simple! Very few would be running around that
time of night. Only one would have gone to Tierra Oscura, then to
Changuinola, then back to Tierra Oscura. It would be a regular
Almirante taxi.

He headed back to his boat and to Almirante.
It took four hours to find the taxi used. The driver said the guy
stayed quiet both ways. He took him to the machines at the Banco
National, then brought him back. He left him in Tierra Oscura and
came back home. He couldn’t add much except the guy used two or
three different cards. He had over a thousand dollars when he got
back in the taxi. He paid sixty five dollars.

He was about what Lydia described. He spoke
very good Panamanian Spanish. He used a cell phone at the bank, but
not in the taxi. He seemed upset about something on the way back to
Tierra Oscura.

The driver hadn’t seen anyone else around
when he took the guy back to Tierra Oscura. There was no boat at
the dock. The guy did use his phone again, but that was after they
got to the dock and he was outside of the taxi. The taxi didn’t
hang around. It was late and he was tired.

Clint went back to his boat. He could ask a
few questions now.

Back out to Bocas.

“
We identified the person on Popa who
was killed. Carlos Menendez. He and a man called Eduord Rauz hung
around together sometimes and seemed to have money at times and be
broke other times. I think perhaps Rauz will prove to be the first
body. We have reports that they hung around Santiago and David more
than here. There are reports concerning an Eduord David from Panamá
and Las Tablas. He has connections that caused him to be watched in
Colón.”

Clint told him about finding the route their
runner had taken and described the boat as best he could. Sergio
said Quenten Robinson had come in early in the morning. He claimed
that he had stayed in Renaciamento with friends for the night and
had come home when it was calm enough and light enough.

“
Friend have a name?”

“
Roberto David. He’s bad news. We’ve
run across him before. Two-bit thug and sneak thief.”

“
If he was with Robinson last night
he’s the torturer. Him or Robinson.”

“
I would tend to agree. If we can get
him to admit that they were, indeed, together, we can get them both
with little or no problem. There will be no way to explain why they
were the only ones in the area of both killings. The MO was the
same on both.

“
You are not going to tell me how you
obtained the information, are you?”

“
Part of it. I went out to Tierra
Oscura on an anonymous tip that a boat as described called at the
dock twice. It has proven to be the Robinson boat. You have enough
to tag them. I’ll find someone who saw that boat in there before
the runner and that it was not seen leaving, but was seen at the
appropriate time with three people in it very close to Solarte.
While the police were there, in fact.”

“
Protect your friends, Clint. That
particular branch of the Robinsons are known to intimidate people
and worse.”

“
I’ll do that. You know it.”

“
Are you out of it now?”

Clint thought for a moment. “No. There was a
reason for that extreme torture – at least in the mind of the
killer.”

Sergio nodded.

Clint left and headed for home. He would find
his answers in Panamá City or David or Las Tablas. He wasn’t about
to go to Colón.

He got a flight to David. He would check out
places, closest first. He had the pictures of David and Robinson
from the police files. He had seen both at times in Bocas, but
hadn’t met or spoken to them. Robinson was black and David was
mestizo. Robinson was bullish and a bit fat. David was thinner and
sported a few tatoos. Both tended to too much flashy jewelry. David
wore gang earrings on the left ear and had a small diamond in a
pierce on the nose.

Clint went to the Top Place billiard halls in
David first, then to the lesser known pool halls. He found that
David hung around a little place near the feria. They didn’t think
much of him one way or another, but it was the kind of place where
a big part of the business was with the type. It was the kind of
place where Clint always kept a close watch behind – as well as in
front, the sides and above. An altercation started while he was
there over a pool game. One punk hit another over the head with a
pool cue. The other patrons broke it up and told them to sit down
and cool off. They didn’t find it at all unusual for one person to
smack another with a cue stick. The tough looking women ignored the
whole scene.

Clint used his little special digital camera
to take pictures of everyone without them knowing. He drank one
beer and left.

He found another place out toward Pedrigal
David went at times. He was with Robinson most of the time he went
there. Robinson came in a few times by himself to meet someone
named Enrique Castille. Castille was known as a mafia hood. People
were scared of him.

Everyone was suspicious why Clint wanted to
know anything. He said it wasn’t any of their business, but he
didn’t mind saying his sister and her best friend might have a
little something to do with it. They were minors. In Panamá it
wasn’t considered as odd that a fifty something man had sisters
that were minors. They were your sisters if your father was fifteen
when you were born and seventy five when your sisters were born. It
wasn’t ever questioned if your parents were married or you were the
result of a one night encounter.

David and Robinson weren’t known to mingle
much, though they sometimes met people from Colón and Panamá (When
we say Panamá with an extra stress on the final á we mean Panamá
City). The people they met ranged from as scruffy as they were to a
couple who seemed to be rather wealthy and out of place in such
places. One was some kind of big lawyer or something. Geraldo
Demerbens or something. They called him Mr. D.

They might be out of place
because of the wealth, but not because of the type
,
Clint thought.

He went to the Palacio Imperial for the
night. A palace it ain’t, as the saying goes. He went around David
for another day, but didn’t learn anything new. He went to the Park
Vista that night and met the owner, Peter, and some friend from
Bocas who were in David on business or to buy things because the
prices were so much better and more variety is available in
David.

Next day was a short trip to Las Tablas.
Neither was welcomed there and it was rare for them to come.

Panamá City. Clint learned that they hung
around a couple of places down past the end of Via España from the
police reports. They also were seen a lot in certain suburbs.
Robinson sometimes met someone in a high-end restaurant and
whorehouse out a few miles. Clint got an idea from that and called
a Russian semi-friend who was often in the place. He said he’d
noted Robinson because he always met Juan Marinni, a Colombian who
worked for some rather unsavory syndicates in Cali and Medillin.
There was a connection with some wannabe gangster in Chiriqui
somewhere. Not so much drugs – though that tended to be a part of
anything from Colombia – as kidnaping and such. “Protection”
rackets were a large part of it. It was called “Private Insurance”
(Seguros Privado) there. It was the old mob thing from the states.
They ran casinos and whorehouses. That kind of thing.

Clint had another name to work with. Maybe a
connection with something. He’d heard of something that could
finally connect something. A little something that connected Isla
Popa and other places. It could explain why Carlos was tortured. It
was a matter of finding how a scheme went wrong from the wrong end.
It could tie all these people together – and Clint had been right
when he said the drug runner had nothing to do with it at all. All
that happened where he was concerned was that he exposed Robinson
and David by accident.

Clint headed back to Bocas on the bus. He
stopped for the night in Chiriqui Grande, but little was known
there. There were the usual stories about who was trying to steal
whose land and how they were going about it. One story caught his
attention a little. It would fit what he suspected, but was the
wrong person and wrong location. Almirante wasn’t much
different.