Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (55 page)

“
What
kind of things are missing?”

“
Oh, some
money – you have to be aware we’re putting funds into an offshore
account or you’re not much of a detective,” Orison replied. “The
money’s really not the most important thing missing. It would do no
good to try to snow you with a load of crap. There was a CD-DVD in
the package that is critical to our personal and business safety.
We have to have that CD!”

“
Let me
detect a bit. The package had money – how much?”

“
A couple
of hundred thousand dollars,” Rasmussen replied. “For the account,
you see.”

“
Yes. You
have a package that had hundreds of thousands of dollars in it, but
the CD is more important?” Clint gave him a very hard stare. “So
that CD will contain the information and the proof that keeps your
money supply coming in. It’s what? Blackmail?

“
We found
very strong evidence of blackmail in Lawrence Lesley’s records.
He’s dead now, so the evidence implicates someone else – or is what
you use to be sure you’re not implicated.

“
As I
said, someone obviously knew about it and has it now. What you need
is for me to find that person or persons so you can protect
yourselves from something. Lawrence and Donald Lesley are murdered,
probably because of something on that CD. You’re now scared
shitless you’re next in line for being knocked over.

“
You
don’t need the CD, you need to know who has it. You hit first or
you get hit. You probably deserve it because you even have that
kind of crooked crap, but I’ll see what my information can turn
up.

“
Did you
check to see who was in San Blas who went to Santiago or Panamá
City in the time-frame?”

“
We’re
not detectives. We don’t know what to do! We’re completely lost!”
Orison wailed. “Panamá City? Why Panamá City? They went to
Santiago!”

“
Because
you can get a bus to Santiago every hour from Panamá City,”
Rasmussen said. “I can figure that one out. We wouldn’t know how to
get that information.”

“
Check
the airline passenger lists and bus terminal records. You can also
find who might have gone to, say, Panamá City to meet someone else
who would then go to Santiago. The trouble with doing that
yourselves is that you’d have to recognize a name. If someone is
using an agent – such as one who sets you up with a puta who mugs
you – you won’t recognize anything.”

“
The
whore didn’t mug me,” Orison protested. “I was mugged as I was
going back to the hotel at about two in the morning.”

“
So it
was set up that way. Same thing. I’ll see what I can find out about
it. I have friends who can trace passengers and so forth. Was the
safe deposit box opened with a signature or something? I can’t
picture a bank that doesn’t require some pretty solid
ID.”

“
Er, it
was left in a hotel safe deposit box,” Rasmussen said. “Someone
named Hanrady picked it up with the key. His description fits half
the American or European men in this country! It doesn’t tell us
much of anything!”

“
It tells
you you’re looking for a gringo or a European average male. That
eliminates ninety six percent of the people in Panamá. Ninety seven
and a half percent. You’re looking for someone among a couple of
thousand people instead of hundreds of thousands. I’ll see what I
can find.”

“
I see!”
Orison cried. “It’s all very logical now! Eliminate as many as you
can and you have a much smaller group to investigate! You started
out eliminating all but a small percentage.

“
Mr.
Faraday, you can discern how very important the information on that
CD is to us. We must have it!”

“
I see,
but have you considered one other seemingly insignificant little
item?”

“
Er, such
as?” Rasmussen asked.

“
You can
make as many copies of a CD as you want with almost any computer
with a burner. Does that change anything? Does it matter if there
are other copies?”

“
Eeeeee!”
Orison squealed. Rasmussen broke out in a sweat and looked unsteady
on his feet. “God! We’re totally fucked! Oh, why did I ever get
involved in this scheme?”

“
Tomorrow
is the price of yesterday,” Clint quoted Bob Seger. “If you get
involved in some crooked scheme you have to accept that it can turn
on you in a wink.

“
Should I
try to find who took the key now? Will you tell me who you think is
behind it?”

“
Two
totally evil people in California,” Rasmussen said dejectedly. “It
was started by us, but got away from us a long time ago. It wasn’t
meant to turn into this travesty. I suppose it won’t matter if you
find it. We never even considered the fact that a CD is easy to
copy.

“
Mr.
Faraday, there is a person here who is at least partially
responsible for your murders. We would have profited greatly from
it if a couple of other things didn’t intervene and become
something that was never intended. We were both very glad that
Lawrence Lesley died. We wanted it to take longer and be more
painful. We knew he had cancer and probably could have cured it.
What he was made us not do so. If ever there was a truly and
totally evil being who paraded himself as a human being, it was
Lawrence Lesley.

“
We have
become much of what he was. We did all the wrong things many years
ago. We should have, as soon as we found some things about him,
simply shot him to death or something.

“
Mr.
Faraday, we were trying to resolve it and protect his family. He
had the funds and where-with-all to thwart us in many ways and we
waited too long. He has destroyed the lives of everyone he came
into contact with. His own family, his wife – everyone. Even the
two of us. We allowed his money and the fact we could obtain so
much of it turn us into the same evil mold as he.

“
I don’t
care if ... there are two people in California who have exploited
us and Lawrence. They are evil in a different way, but I have to
consider that they may be as evil as Lawrence Lesley was. I haven’t
ever really considered what I have become. I am doing so now. I
think I really do deserve a slow and painful death. I don’t care
anymore.

“
Come on,
Sven. Let’s go.”

They turned around and walked out.

“
Quite
the little act,” Clint mumbled. “Try to place blame on anyone else,
but you’ve figured I knew about the cancer and tried to cover. I
think now you know you’ve marked yourselves for murder. Maybe that
will show me who’s really the bad guy here!”

He needed another shower to get the slime off
him that being in the same room with those two left. Maybe he
should fumigate the house.

“
Hi,
Amanda!” Clint greeted as she came into the restaurant at Olas
Hotel. “I heard you moved here. How are things? Been seeing any
sights?”

“
Oh, Mr.
Faraday! Yes. I needed a more ... I don’t know. Not so snobby a
place as where I was staying. It’s really very nice and all that,
but I’m am SO sick of the overly-rich. My nature is to be a normal
slob. I never knew that until now. I’ve been thinking a lot about
the places we’ve been when we didn’t do anything but argue and
fight. Places where Pops made it hell for all of us.

“
There’s
a little place where he bought a little pink house on a cliff over
the ocean in Ecuador. I was always happy there because we would go
for a couple of days and he would go somewhere else. He said it was
to the place in Colombia. He had something there in a place not far
from Cali that I saw a couple of times. In the mountains with a
river on the bottom of the property. I think he was coming here. It
was just so nice to not have him screwing up everything for
everybody he came into contact with.

“
How is
the detecting? Know who did it?”

“
Everyone
does it, but ... oh. You meant the murders. (she laughed). I keep
learning all kinds of new things that have little or nothing – or
everything – to do with the murders.”

“
I think
Donald just happened to be there is why he’s dead. It was Pops who
had most of the world hating him.”

“
It was
probably the other way around. Donald was the target and Lawrence
was just there so the killer said, ‘Why the hell not?’ and knocked
him over. If he was taking some of those pain pills on top of the
booze he was probably unconscious at the time.”

“
Donald?
Who would want to kill him? He didn’t ever do anything.”

“
Oh, the
fixed races and offshore accounts, such as the one Trudy inherited.
That’s already led to the blackmail and the involvement of Orison
and Rasmussen.”

“
Fixed
races ... I didn’t ... so that’s what it was about. I knew Pops had
some kind of deal with Donald. He always shrugged off when Don took
a few thousand without his permission or something such, but he did
always treat him the same way he treated all of us.

“
AH! So
THAT’S why it never seemed to bother Don at all! I’ll be doubly
damned!

“
So? How
much was in his offshore account?”

“
Whose?”

“
Pops, of
course.”

“
Nothing.
He didn’t have any. Just Donald, Orison and Rasmussen.”

She stared at him a moment. “Really?”

“
Uh-huh.”

“
And now
it’s all Trudy’s?”

“
Uh-huh.”

“
So
THAT’S why Razzy kept calling and telling me to let him know if you
were here or not. Judi said you were down at the Zapatillas or
somewhere. Did Trudy get his part? How?”

“
It was
in a corporation in Donald’s name. He was the one running the whole
thing and Orison and Rasmussen were doing a good part of it under
his orders, I suppose.”

“
I always
thought Don was a lot smarter than he let on. Trudy deserves it, I
guess, but she would be the one who profits from Don’s
death.”

“
Trouble
is that she’s the only one with a real alibi. She could have hired
it, but there was no hired hand anywhere near it – and the poison
was brought from the states. In addition I think something’s been
stolen from Orison and Rasmussen that’s got them running
terrified.” Clint was making a lot of it up to see her reaction
(virtually none) and so she could spread the word. “They want an
item that was stolen from Santiago by someone who robbed Orison at
a local whorehouse in San Blas.”

“
Excuse
me? Robbed him in San Blas and then something was stolen from ...
in San Blas? Isn’t ... Santiago? Isn’t Santiago a long way from San
Blas?”

“
Halfway
across Panamá.”

“
So. It
was someone who knew ... and set it up,” she said slowly, looking
confused. “Who here ... would even...? What if they had ... it has
to be ... Frieda? How could she...?

“
This is
scary! What if someone thinks the rest of us have things they
want?”

“
You
mentioned Frieda? The housekeeper who was your father’s mistress?
She’s married to that Lindsay character. Why would she be into
anything else, except that she might know about it?”

Amanda was staring open-mouthed at him.
“Frieda and Frank? That’s ridiculous! They hardly speak to each
other!”

“
Good
act, huh? Kind of makes one wonder what they’re doing, doesn’t it?
Why would they go to that extreme? A business arrangement? You can
see what I mean about all these other things intruding into the
case.”

“
You say
there were fixed races? I sort of suspected SOMEthing, but that
wasn’t ... and Lindsay would be the one who would know how to set
it up. Frieda would be the schemer who ended up in charge – then
Pops and Don get murdered and Trudy runs off with the prize! I LOVE
it! If that scheming bitch lost everything it was damned well the
greatest bit of irony I ever heard of!

“
Still,
she would be the type ... what would Razzy and Doc have she wanted?
Any ideas?”

“
Maybe
blackmail evidence held against HER?” Clint wondered (for real!)
aloud. “That would be why they had so much money in the account
here and so much cash. They’d cut themselves into her deal. Maybe
it was getting too expensive for her and she arranged for Lawrence
and Donald to get offed. Now she would have what Orison and
Rasmussen used to keep her at bay ... but the money’s
gone!

“
You
know, that IS rich!”

She looked more scared then. Clint asked
why.

“
Because
I’ve seen Pop’s will – the real one. She can inherit a lot of stuff
and is mentioned in such a way that she gets half of what anyone
else would get if they don’t survive.”

“
That
would be at the time of his death. She wouldn’t profit from
knocking any of you off now.”

“
No. At
the time of the reading of the will. Pops set that up to ... she
was blackmailing him, too! He set it up to make her look guilty! He
had to know they wouldn’t read the will until they found his killer
or had some who had airtight alibis – which no one would ever have
if it had happened the way he planned! He was the most despicable
person who ever lived, but he was my father and I did love him in a
very sick way. He even wanted Frieda to look guilty. All of us and
anyone else he could add.