Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (70 page)

“
I kind
of thought so,” Emilio said.

“
Exactly
WHAT are you implying?!” Maribel screeched.

“
I as
much as knew it,” Bonita said. “I could see that or something worse
coming for some time. More than two years. I’ve been
waiting.”

“
Continue,” Sergio suggested. “I noted much of what you’ve
said and had reached the conclusion that it had to be. Tell us the
rest of your process.”

“
NO!!”
Maribel pleaded. “Oh, please do NOT say it! He can’t be buried on
consecrated ground if.... It will be a total disgrace to the
family!”

“
Quiet!
You have tampered with evidence in a criminal case,” Sergio warned
sternly. “If you continue to act in this manner you will be charged
with that. Think of the scandal that will surely ensue if you find
yourself convicted of criminal acts and incarcerated for three
years!”

She looked terrified and sat back to sob into
her hands.

“
Okay.
Tell us the rest of it,” Emilio requested. “I won’t be disgraced
because of anything anyone else did.”

“
Okay,”
Clint agreed. “Let’s now go back to the moment I first came here.
We landed in the Indio village where I was immediately told you
were an extremely religious family by the natives.

“
They do
not hate you, by the way. They pity you because you have all these
things and no love.

“
I next
walked through that gate and saw four chapels, which meant
religion. Catholicism.

“
I saw
the extreme sterility of the house. It was only a house, not a
home. People stayed there, they didn’t live there. That is another
point of the Indio philosophy I couldn’t make most of you
understand.

“
Then I
went into his sterile bedroom. As Sergio noted, it was ‘his’
bedroom and not ‘our’ bedroom. That told me the marriage has become
as sterile as everything else there.

“
He was
dressed for dying. He was as much as laid out. The glass of a very
fast poison was carefully placed on the lamp table. Cyanide will
usually cause a spasm. He wasn’t positioned in a way that would
indicate one. He had been moved, if only very slightly. Perhaps he
was only turned over and the covers straightened. It was far too
neat for a death by cyanide. That it was suicide was obvious: There
was no note? He had been moved?

“
Someone
took the note and moved him. What happened to the carton he poured
the juice from? Why was it moved?

“
That was
a mistake. The carton was used, thus should not be there, thus was
taken to the kitchen, rinsed and put into the garbage bin.
Why?”

Something occurred to him then. There really
was a “Why?” to that scenario! He thought he knew what it must
be.

“‘
Why’ is
because the suicide note was thrown away with the
carton.”

Maribel screeched. Clint said he would be
glad to read her a bit of the note. He took out the sheet with the
six lines and read: “I cannot longer tolerate this situation in my
life. Life has become empty and without meaning. I have decided to
take a final step to end the travesty my existence represents. I
know this solution will deeply affect my wife and children. For
this I apologize. I always have held you as first concern, though
often I understand it did not seem thus.”

He paused then. Maribel was shaking her head
and crossing herself.

“
Must I
go on?”

“
No!”
Bonita cried. “Enough! Emilio is correct! It is not a disgrace when
it is someone else who does a thing. It is a disgrace if you do it
or know of it and do not act to stop it! I know Carlo well. I know
he would stop before he actually ... did it. He went too far. I
know he has started to do this before and could not. God will
forgive because I know he was a good man in his heart. It is my own
daughter who has brought this on us in her greed and desire to be
of a station she is NOT!

“
I will
speak with the priest. I can swear that Carlo did not do this
intentionally, that he would have not done it. That he repented in
the moment before he died. He will understand and will accept that
Carlo was forgiven.

“
Carlo
will be buried in consecrated ground. This I promise. I knew
him.”

“
Must it
be known that he died of his own hand?” Margarita asked.

“
No. Dr.
Astrades will put on the certificate that he died of acute cyanide
poisoning, possibly by accident,” Sergio promised.

“
Thank
you,” Maribel said quietly. For once she wasn’t on a tirade. Clint
wasn’t fooled for one second by the extreme change. She was simply
terrified she would be charged with obstruction and
evidence-tampering.

Was she in that room when he took the stuff?
Was that why she tried to get rid of the note? DID Carlo change his
mind? Did SHE then dose his juice?

For that matter, did she write the note and
set the whole thing up to murder him? After all, she hated this
place and wanted to move back to Panamá City. Now she would inherit
and could do that.

He was going to look into this a little more.
He didn’t really believe that, but it was far too much of a
possibility.

He had Sergio call the officer/guard at the
house and have him gather the juice cartons from the garbage bin.
He called back five minutes later and said there was a page stuffed
into one of them, not the one on top.

“
Who
signed it?” Clint asked.

“
There
isn’t any signature, just ‘Carlo Vasquez V.’ typed on the
bottom.”

Oh? An unsigned suicide note? Now Clint WAS
curious!

“
I’ve
arranged for us to be at the reading of the will,” Sergio informed
Clint. “The lawyer, Gabriel Gabriel, says there are a few things
that will cause some trouble. Emilio asked that he contact me and
arranged for the lawyer to come here to read the will. This
afternoon.”

“
I’ll be
there,” Clint promised.

“
We must
first fully understand that the rights of inheritance here in
Panamá are not the same as in the United States – for the
information of the people who may not know that. If they wish to
contest, it will prove fruitless.”

Clint raised an eyebrow toward Sergio, who
whispered that the wife could claim everything if there was no
will, but could be left nothing if there was. Clint knew that. It
wasn’t too much different in the states.

Gabriel continued. “The will is unusual. It
leaves everything to one person. That person is not the wife. That
is what is most unusual.

“
I will
read the will. It is simple.”

When he said it was not the wife Maribel
actually screamed. He gave her a withering look.

“
I, Carlo
Vasquez Vega, do hereby stipulate the following as my personal
registered last will and testament.

“
I will
tender statement simple as to why this document is in the form and
manner you find it.

“
For
twelve years I had an idyllic married life. I was a working
attorney with a good practice and was able to provide my family
with those things a father wishes most to tender to those he loves
most in the world.

“
Then I
entered into the dirty world of politics, working for a
representative who is related to my wife. We were able to make
deals that shame me, in retrospect. We became extremely wealthy,
but had no self-pride. This affected my wife in a very negative
way. She became a grasping greedy person who placed material wealth
above all things in life. She as much as turned her back on myself
and our family.

“
Her
mother was living with us since her father died and tried to warn
me that Maribel was fast becoming too much the same as her uncle,
the representative.

“
My son,
Emilio, was never as badly affected as was my daughter, Margarita.
Margarita was, if slowly, becoming more and more the same as her
mother. The love and caring left the marriage. We stayed married, a
huge mistake, for the sake of the children, though I knew by then
that it was only for her. She liked the money and being someone who
knew everyone of station. She has never realized that she did not
acquire station, she merely knew many who have station.

“
Station
is a very empty, hollow thing. It has taken the meaning of life
from me.

“
I leave
everything I die possessed of to my son, Emilio Vasquez S. It is
solely to his discretion to decide what to do with the monies and
properties. I ask only that he see that Bonita Sevilla is cared for
so long as she lives and that he try to teach Margarita that money
and station are meaningless empty things that will make one’s life
as meaningless and empty. There is a recent listing of all
properties and holdings attached to be declared the properties and
holdings of Emilio.

“
Are
there any questions?”

Maribel snarled a curse. Margarita was
staring in shock. Bonita looked relieved. Emilio was as much as
disbelieving.

Maybe Maribel killed her husband. She would
lose her “station” and wealth except for what Emilio decided to
give her. Margarita might actually learn a lesson. Bonita had
always tried to help Carlo. Emilio would be generous to the
deserving people. If she killed her husband she could get six years
in prison here. This was a life sentence.

All-in-all a pretty good ending!

Oye!

Mario Guerra paddled his cayuca around the
tip of the mangrove island and toward the Rio Oeste. The water was
shallow, but the tide was high. He wouldn’t go directly into the
river. It was raining in the mountains, making the run-out very
muddy. There wouldn’t be much to find and the logs and detritus
would make progress difficult.

He went on southeastward toward Isla Pastore,
following the flow of the river, searching along the banks of the
mainland and islands for things washing out. He found a life vest,
nearly new, a good paddle, a plastic fishing bucket, a tackle box
with a lot of expensive lures ... someone had capsized between the
river and Isla Pastore. They lost all their equipment. There would
be a big reward.

He went around past the end of Sheppard’s
Island to see the keel of a fiberglass boat sticking out of the
water, moving along with the slow flow. He went to the boat and
looked it over. A sixteen footer with the foot of a forty five
horse Yamaha four-stroke engine sticking up. That meant someone was
hurt. He hoped they made it to shore safely.

He slipped into the water and under the boat
to see a woman’s body caught in the steering wheel. She was about
twenty five or thirty, slim and attractive, long blond hair.

He swam
back out and called “Oye!” loudly in the Indio attention
form:
OI
EE-uh!

After three calls he received an answering
call from the river. He told them to call the police. There had
been an accident.

“
How was
your morning?” Sergio (Valdez, Cpt. of the violent crimes division
of the Bocas del Toro police) asked of Judi Lum and Clint
Faraday.

“
Fair. We
went to Bastimentos and snorkeled around those coral heads at the
tip, then had a good picnic lunch on Red Frog,” Judi answered.
“They don’t like for us to come in a boat, but that’s just too
tough!”

The phone buzzed. Sergio answered, wrote down
some information and hung up.

“
Boat
accident. That was Ronaldo from Almirante. He said for me to come
out because it’s in my jurisdiction more than his.”

“
An
accident? Why call you?” Judi asked.

“
Because
there was a death. A woman,” Sergio answered. “She was in the boat
that turned over.”

“
Still,
an accident?” Clint wondered.

“
She was
tied to the wheel inside with duct tape. That sort of takes the
‘accident’ part into the ‘Yeah, right!’ category.”

“
I
guess!” Judi agreed.

“
Want to
come along?” Sergio asked.

“
Clint
will go. I’ve got to host the garden club in about an hour and a
half, See ya!” Judi replied.

“
Lead on,
Jeeves!” Clint said.

“
We don’t
have an ID on the victim yet,” Sergio reported. “The boat was
apparently stolen last night from a gringo who has a place on
Tierra Oscura. Willie Macon. I gave Mario twenty dollars for the
things he found. That’s about what the reward would be. He went on
ahead in the flow a little bit and back along the mangroves to find
stuff tangled in the roots or whatever. He found the first things
right at the mouth of Rio Oeste.”

“
Yeah. I
told him to try to find where the boat turned over,” Clint added.
They were reporting to Dr. Astrades, the ME. “He’ll find it. The
Indios have an uncanny ability to find things in the
water.”

“
How will
he find it?” Doc asked.

“
Things
that sink right there,” Sergio said. “Rods and reels, stuff like
that.”

“
Oh? Do
you know there WERE any rods and reels?”

“
There
was a tackle box, so it’s a good bet,” Clint said. “There’ll be
other things.”

Doc nodded and said that his assistant was
doing a rape kit on her. She had been bruised a bit so that might
be another good bet. Sergio and Clint agreed. Clint said they might
find DNA – except, what would they do with it?