Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (69 page)

“
Document
1" was dated Dic. 24, 2008:23:14. It was written last night at
11:14.

Clint went to the printer cache and
discovered that “document 1" was printed, then the cache cleared.
There was no draft saved.

Vasquez printed something, went to bed and
died. Where was it? It would have to still be in that room if he
didn’t give it to one of the others.

He soon went back downstairs where he was
introduced to Emilio and Margarita Vasquez and an old woman named
Bonita Sevilla. He asked them the usual questions, then if Carlo
had given anyone anything last night after eleven o’clock or
so.

“
Anything
like what?” Emilio asked.

“
Anything. A glass of water, a book, a cookie, a piece of
paper. Anything.”

They looked around at each other and said,
no, he hadn’t come down from his bedroom after he went upstairs at
ten thirty.

“
What was
his mood? Was he acting strangely, like he was afraid of
anyone?”

“
WHAT do
you MEAN?! My husband wasn’t afraid of ANYthing,” Maribel said
huffily. “The idea! What would he have to be afraid of?”

“
He is
dead. He had something or someone he would be insane not to be
afraid of,” Sergio pointed out. Emilio said that was damned well
true! (And crossed himself quickly when he said “damned.”)
Margarita said he did act like there was something wrong, but he
wasn’t afraid of anything. They had wished each other a good
Christmas, he looked like he was thinking about something, then had
returned the wish and gone upstairs.

“
When you
said ‘Merry Christmas!’ he looked like – maybe it was not merry for
him?” Clint asked.

“
Well ...
yes. I think that would describe it.”

“
We had
exchanged gifts. We always do that on Christmas Eve just before
midnight,” Bonita said. “He left his gifts right here in the
parlor. There.” She pointed to some packages on a table in the
corner. Clint went to look at them: An expensive silk tie with a
silver clip. A billfold. A silk bathrobe. A hand-tooled leather
date book. A pocket calculator with the date book. A gold pen. All
impersonal.

“
Well, I
have to get some more information. I have to call a friend in
Changuinola and then come back. I would appreciate if no one
entered the room except with Doc when they remove the body until he
has a chance to see some things.”

“
See what
things?!” Maribel cried. “I WILL NOT allow anyone to poke around in
his private papers and ... and things! I will NOT!”

“
Oh,
mother, there’s nothing you can do about it,” Margarita said. “It
will just go on and on if you start that dramatic
stuff,”

“
I most
certainly CAN and WILL do something about it! I know important
people! I will go over your head! You will NOT...!”

“
Mom,
SHUT UP!” Emilio spat. “You’re acting in just the way that makes us
all suspects! Can’t you see that?”

“
No! We
are NOT the kind of people who are suspects in this kind of sordid
thing!”

“
Then
stop acting like you are!” Sergio ordered. “You are acting like a
guilty person. An innocent person would want everything possible to
be done to catch the killer of one in their family.”

“
Well, of
COURSE I want them caught and sent to jail for the rest of their
life!”

“
Then why
are you trying so hard to obstruct investigation of the
crime?”

“
Got you
there, Mom!” Emilio said. “Officer, Mr. Faraday, do what you have
to do. We won’t go near that room. If someone’s trying to kill off
the family I think it would be best if we went back to, as Mom
suggested, Panamá City. I don’t feel safe here at all. There’re too
many people who resent us. I know it’s our own fault. We come here
to their place and act like royalty. I’ve read enough crime books
to know we can’t do that. I do want to go to a hotel on Bocas,
though. The rest can do as they please.”

“
WhatEVER
do you mean? Kill off the family? It’s our fault?” Maribel
demanded.

“
Didn’t
you say, repeatedly, that it was someone ... some savage from the
village ... who killed your husband?” Sergio asked. “I’d think all
of you would feel very much threatened.

“
Emilio,
you can go to Bocas if you want to. It’s the legal seat of
jurisdiction.”

Maribel was looking truly shocked now. She
mumbled that it would be best if they did get away from the island.
It was true that she thought they hated the family and would want
to wipe them out. She had accused them of the crime and they would
want to get her for that. She didn’t mean it the way it sounded.
She was in shock and not thinking.

Emilio said he hadn’t noticed any difference.
Maybe one in that family was worth his salt.

If they left Clint could possibly find what
he knew had to be somewhere in that house – if it hadn’t already
been destroyed. Clint went quickly through the other downstairs
rooms. The huge kitchen was spotless (as expected) with everything
having a place and everything in its place. The refrigerator was
sterile, the stove was sterile, the dish cabinets were sterile, the
food pantry was sterile. The garbage had been taken outside
somewhere.

The juice was in individual serving cartons
in the refrigerator. There was no leftover from what would have to
be a large meal, so either only exactly enough for the family was
cooked or leftovers were thrown away or the cook took them
home.

The shiny silverware, actual pure silver, was
in a locked chest. The key was in the cabinet in the dining room
where Sergio said it was kept.

Clint had never seen a place outside of CSI
labs and such that was so sterile. Not even they would be THAT
sterile.

He couldn’t get the word out of his mind.

He went outside to the garbage bin. There was
no organic matter inside. Even cans and cartons had been rinsed
before being thrown away. The empty juice cartons were in the
bin.

Why? Wouldn’t the used carton be in the
bedroom where he opened it to pour the juice?

He finished his search and headed back to
Isla Colón. Things were exactly as he felt they would be when he
looked over that scene and talked to those people.

“
Doug?
Clint Faraday here,” Clint said into his phone in the morning. “I
hope you and yours had a good Christmas?”

Doug is a computer expert Clint knew from
when Dave’s hard drive was fried.

“
Very
good, Clint. A belated Feliz Navidades!”

“
Can you
do me a favor? There’s been a death. Something was printed on a
Canon IP eighteen hundred printer minutes before the death, but the
cache was erased and it wasn’t saved in the documents file. Is
there any way to retrieve it?”

“
Are you
there? Can you turn on the computer?”

“
It’s on
Solarte. No.”

“
Can you
go out there and call me when you boot up?”

“
Okay.
Half an hour?”

“
Fine.”

Clint called Sergio to say he’d need the keys
to the house. Sergio said he’d meet him at the station and go with
him to get away from the station for awhile. It seemed all the cops
had hangovers and were sick and argumentative. Clint laughed and
promised he’d be there in a few minutes. He called Judi to discuss
Christmas. She had gone to a friend’s place to have a big turkey
dinner – at which he was conspicuously absent. He explained that he
was investigating a murder. She said she had tried to call him, but
the place was, as he knew, out past The Bluffs and there was no
signal.

They chatted a bit, then Clint went to the
station and across to Solarte with Sergio in the police boat. The
Vasquez yacht was moored out from the marina. All of them except
Emilio had stayed on it. Emilio said he’d had about all he could
take of his mother’s dramatics for one night and had stayed at the
Swan’s Cay.

They went to the house. Basilio and Moises
were sitting on the steps. Emilio had paid them to stay there for
the night to guard the place. He was the only one who was vaguely
human in that family. They bought a big Coke and a bottle of rum
and celebrated. They were still a little drunk.

Face it. They were drunk on their asses!
Clint said they could go home. The police would guard the place
now.

They said the police guard was in the
barbeque place, sleeping. Sergio said he wondered what had happened
to the officer he left there.

Well, it WAS Christmas. You had to make some
allowances.

Clint laughed and they went inside. Clint
went directly up to the bedroom where he booted up the computer,
then called Doug.

“
What
program are you running?” Doug asked.

“
MSWord.”

“
No. The
comp master program.”

“
Windows
XP.”

“
You have
it on Word?”

“
Yes.”

“
Go to
recent documents. Click on the one you want to find.”

“
Done.”

“
Look at
‘properties’ and click on it.”

“
Umm-hmm.”

“
What’s
there?”

“
The time
and date.”

“
Nothing
else?”

“
No.
Nothing.”

“
Turn on
the printer and click on the icon.”

“
It says
no documents in cache.”

“
Right-click the icon.”

A pop-up window opened with a form and “No
documents saved.”

“
On the
toolbar there are two circular arrows on the upper left under the
upper tool bar. Just under ‘Format’ and ‘Table’, one curling to the
left and one to the right. Click on the one to the
left.”

A partial paragraph came on. Clint said that
was all that came up.

“
Yes. It
retained a few lines of the last item printed. Some programs will
save the whole document. This one is set to save a certain number
of lines. That’s the best you can do without some very expensive
equipment that will read whatever was on the hard
drive.”

Clint said there were six lines. It may be
enough. He thanked Doug and printed the lines.

Clint went downstairs and told Sergio he had
to search Maribel’s rooms. If he couldn’t see that she and Carlo
having separate bedrooms said one hell of a lot about the marriage
and family he was just plain stupid!

“
I saw
that the minute I came into this edifice,” Sergio replied. “It’s
not a home, it’s a place people stay. As soon as she said he was in
‘his’ bedroom, not ‘our’ bedroom, I knew they were staying together
for religious reasons and for the children – which is the worst
thing you could do to the children. I can’t see anyone staying with
her even for the children.”

“
Well, we
can look around for the printed copy of this,” Clint said,
proffering the six lines. “I think we can find it unless it was
burned or something.”

Sergio looked a question and read the lines.
He shrugged.

“
It was
written a few short minutes before he swallowed a large slug of
cyanide.”

“
It
suggests, it doesn’t state. I thought that would be it.”

They searched Maribel’s rooms. The paper
wasn’t there. Sergio said it was gone or in that boat with her.

“
We can
call a family meeting now,” Clint suggested.

They locked up the house, woke the cop in the
barbeque and went back to Isla Colón.

“
I’ve
called you here to discuss the death of Carlo Vasquez,” Clint said.
“This is a formal meeting.

“
We have
learned pretty much about it. We feel we can resolve the issues
here and close this case as solved. We know all about his
death.”

“
He was
MURDERED by those stinking dirty evil SAVAGES in that stinking
dirty village!” Maribel insisted.

“
The
indios are not dirty. In fact they’re almost fanatically clean
people,” Clint replied, unfazed by her beginning tirade. “I will
appreciate a lack of these silly overacted melodramatics. Your
delivery isn’t convincing (Emilio gave him a thumbs-up).

“
We know
for a fact that the people in this room and Carlo Vasquez were the
only people in the house. No one else could have introduced the
cyanide into that glass of juice.”

“
Hah! The
kitchen girl! Lucinda! SHE could have!” Maribel cried triumphantly.
“She could put it there before she left! She didn’t leave until ten
o’clock!”

“
No, she
couldn’t,” Clint replied tiredly. “Please don’t
interrupt.”

“
But she
COULD! It would be easy! Put it in his juice and take it to
him!”

“
She was
gone before he went upstairs and never was allowed outside the
kitchen and dining room in any case – according to your own
statements,” Clint said patiently. He wasn’t about to let her get
to him. “He went upstairs, composed a note on his computer, printed
it out, went to his bed, poured and drank that juice laced with
cyanide. The glass was placed on the lamp table before he died. He
had only a very few seconds after drinking the juice to live. He
put it there so there wouldn’t be a mess from spilled juice in the
bed.”

“
My dear
God!” Margarita cried, then crossed herself.