Clint Faraday Mysteries collection A Muddled Murders Collector's Edition (86 page)

“
Clint,
I’m going to wait awhile before I move in (Judi raised an eyebrow
at Clint). I want to know if I even have a job much longer. My work
card isn’t good for working anywhere else or for anyone else. I
don’t know enough to make any plans, though I’ll definitely want to
be back here, regardless. I like it better than
Colombia.”

“
What
part of Colombia?” Judi asked.

“
Not far
from Cartagena, but that’s just for the work. My home, until the
folks died, was near Medellin.”

Judi nodded. Gina had to get to work. Clint
was going to be checking a few things out. He walked Gina to work.
She had to fish around for her keys because Avenidas wasn’t there
yet. Unusual. He was generally early. When she was inside Clint
went to Don Chichos for the gossip, then to the Golden Grill. The
talk was all about the chest and very little about the murder. They
didn’t know much about it.

He then went to the police station to talk
with Sergio, who said he had checked Raul Avenida out and hadn’t
learned much. The murder took his attention. It seemed he was on
the fringe of a lot of sordid things, but there was never a direct
connection to anything illegal. He did come up with a few articles
from twelve to four or five years ago that very well could have
come from that chest. He had been living on the proceeds from that,
comfortably, even extravagantly, until lately. Now, it seemed his
funds were getting low. His business deals certainly didn’t account
for what he was spending. The Blakley woman seemed to have some
connection with him in Colombia and met with him twice that he knew
about in Bocas over the past week. That was, apparently from the
papers in her room, about purchasing some kind of company in
Colombia. He started it there, moved here and she was only here to
finalize the deal.

“
Finalize
a deal in Colombia in Bocas?” Clint asked. Sergio shrugged and said
it probably had to do with the offshore account she had here in
Panamá. “What I see at this point is that she’s dead and he was the
only one who knew her. That makes a couple of very important
implications.”

“
What
time was she killed?“ Clint asked.

“
Between
ten and eleven. Closer to eleven. Out by sixth street. No one saw
or heard anything.”

“
I know
where he was at about eight thirty. The Lemon Grass. He was with a
local pro. I think she calls herself Evette,” Cliff said. “Not
among the better ones.”

“
She
hangs around the Submarine Sandwich place, so we can run over and
talk to her,” Sergio suggested. “She’s probably going to be his
alibi, even though I doubt he did it.”

They went to the café, but she was over by
the Bocas Market. They found her there. She said Raul was a bit of
a weirdo, talking about the other women he knew and how they were
all alike. Out to screw him out of as much money as they could.

“
He
really got weird about the old treasure chest they found, you know,
the pirate chest, had ten million dollars in cash in it, if you can
believe the word going around.”

“
Weird?
What do you mean?” Sergio asked.

“
Oh, I
don’t know, really. I don’t speak much English and he was yelling
about some cheap pig who cost him lots of money. She screwed him
and he didn’t even get a kiss out of it. It didn’t make any
sense.”

“
What
time did you leave him?” Clint asked.

“
I think
it was around midnight. He said it was time to get home because he
had a lot of work for today and it was already after
midnight.”

“
You
don’t know for certain?” Sergio asked.

“
Well,
no. We were at the VIP and were a bit drunk and he left me some
money and I stayed until almost closing time. Donaldo took me
home.”

They thanked her. Sergio asked Clint what he
thought.

“
We don’t
know a thing more than when we found her. He could have been there
until midnight or he could have gotten her drunk and left at ten.
She wouldn’t remember.”

“
What I’m
thinking is that the VIP is right there. Someone going down to
sixth street for a taxi would pass right in front of the VIP,”
Sergio said. “It seems a bit convenient.”

Clint nodded. It did that! “Shall we go see
if his story matches?”

It was Sergio’s turn to nod. They walked to
the office and greeted Gina. Gina said he had come in less than
five minutes ago and had one hell of a hangover. She called on the
intercom and he said to come on in, but they had to take him as
they found him. It wasn’t pretty.

He greeted them with, “Do NOT drink wine with
dinner, beer after, then rum and tequila after that. I ended up in
some dive with an ugly cheap whore I thought I’d never get rid of.
Luckily, I was in a place where they knew her, so I was able to get
away by buying her a few more drinks and giving the bartender ten
to see she didn’t leave for fifteen minutes. That’s my complaint
and I feel like complaining. So there!

“
What can
I do for you?”

“
You had
business dealings with a Betina Blakley?” Sergio asked.

“
Oh. The
Blakley woman. A real pain in the ass, but I’m going to get a big
commission, so I try to be nice to her,” he said. “I don’t think
she has anything to cause the cops to come. It’s not my fault
MisCamCo isn’t thrilled about her getting such a block of stock,
but they put it on the market themselves, so they paid their two
bucks and placed their bet, far as I’m concerned. She might not
have gotten her millions exactly legitimately, but that’s no
concern of mine, either.”

“
Did you
know she’s dead?” Clint asked.

Avenidas stared at him a few seconds, then
sat down hard, almost breaking the seat off his chair. He groaned
and wailed, “Then there goes my commission! I can’t AFFORD to lose
that! Oh, SHIT! I was counting on that to ... oh, SHIT FIRE!

“
Er, what
happened?”

“
She was
murdered,” Sergio replied. “Stabbed. Rather
sadistically.”

“
When?
She was here yesterday. She was ... she acted normally, for her. A
bit nasty.”

“
Last
night,” Sergio answered. “We were wondering if she said anything to
you that would indicate she was afraid of anyone or if she acted
nervous or whatever.”

“
Well,
she was a little worried about the people who definitely did
not
want her to get control of the
company, but they wouldn’t go that far. No matter what else, it
would solve their financial situation and let them come back fairly
strongly. It would have a negative impact on them to not have the
deal go through – as I very carefully explained to her.

“
She
always carried a lot of cash around. Was it robbery?”

“
Definitely not. It was supposed to look like it, but it was
definitely not robbery,” Sergio said. “Her money and watch were
gone, but she had on a diamond and ruby ring worth in excess of ten
thousand dollars with matching earrings worth as much plus an
antique emerald necklace that would probably bring half a million
or more. I was surprised the ones who found the body didn’t take
them. I was even more surprised that anyone would wear that kind of
stuff in Bocas, then wander around sixth street, of all
places.”

“
I can
see why they grabbed the watch. It was worth a bundle,” he said.
“Maybe they were about to be seen and ran. She had some kind of
thing about wearing thousands of dollars worth of jewels. Flaunting
that she was a rich bitch.”

“
Her body
was found more than half an hour after she was killed, so that
isn’t likely,” Sergio replied. “Well, we’d better get on with it.
We do have the reputation for solving murders fairly quickly and
positively here – until this Bill character, but we didn’t really
have a clue about that.”

“
We have
the added advantage of the watch. It’s damned easy to identify,”
Clint added. “They can’t get rid of it and they damned well can’t
keep it. If they toss it it’ll be found, then they
will.”

“
If they
toss it they’ll be found?” he asked, confused.

“
Very few
know about it – so don’t let on. It will have to be someone we’ve
mentioned it to,” Sergio said. “We’ll be in touch if we need
anything more.”

They went out. Gina pointed to the intercom
and grinned. Clint raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t seen any indicator
light on in that office.

Gina saw his look and said, “I think the
little red light is burnt out or something.” He grinned again and
told her to keep her ears open, but don’t go too far. One person
was already dead.

They went to the station, where Sergio was
handed several sheets of legal paper. He signed a couple, told
Edith to arrest those two, then read over the next one. He said it
was about Betina Blakley. She was born in Houston, Texas, and was
taken to Colombia when she was less than a year old, was raised in
Colombia and the states, went to UT, got an advanced degree in
business administration when she was twenty two, then moved back to
Colombia where her parents were living in a small puebla near
Medillin. She worked for a couple of companies, married a rich
Colombian who was killed twelve years ago in a drug cartel fight.
She lived by investing a lot of cash in failing companies, taking
over and making them pay. She threw a lot of money around, but she
had so much she could show was legal that she was left alone.
Adding up her accounts, particularly the three offshore accounts in
Panamá and subtracting what she could show was legit left her with
almost a hundred million unexplained.

Not much and a lot at the same time,
depending on how you looked at it. A little nag started in Clint’s
mind, but he didn’t have a clue as to what his subconscious had
seen.

Next page was a list of people she had been
known to have had dealings with. Avenidas was one of them. She knew
him a lot longer than he had let on, though he didn’t seem to have
had much dealings with her and it was a matter of how long, not how
often. Contact between them was rare. A note said that he was in on
a couple of deals with her father.

It clicked. Her father was killed twelve
years ago and he had sold some jewels from that chest twelve years
ago, then Betina went to where that chest was found the night
before it was found – because of a tip from a woman.

That didn’t make much sense. It wouldn’t
until he had some more to work with. It didn’t make sense, anymore
than that cash in the chest made sense. If that chest was dug up
twelve years ago and the jewels were taken ... but the money was no
newer than fifty years old. This was weirder and weirder.

“
What
world were you in then?” Sergio asked.

“
Oogy-googy land, I think. This is one hell of a mixed mess!
NOTHING makes any sense!”

“
At least
you have things that make no sense. All I have is a body and one
definite suspect.”

“
Why
would he kill ... because of the cash. It wasn’t supposed ... she
... I’ll be damned! That fits! She didn’t know the cash was in
there EITHER!”

“
Give!”
Sergio demanded.

“
I just
have an idea that makes partial sense. I have to know about
Avenidas and her father. I have to know a hell of a lot more about
what was happening twelve and fifty years ago.”

“
This is
getting interesting ... I mean, in addition to weird.”

“
We
didn’t go too deeply into Avenidas in Colombia. There’s not a lot
of cooperation.”

“
I’ll get
help from Manolo and a friend,” Clint promised.

Clint called Manolo for some information on
Avenidas’ father and Blakley Sr. Anything. Manolo could get
information from Colombia that regular processes couldn’t. He then
called Manny to ask for any information from the states,
particularly Houston, on possible connections there. He then
decided to go out to the Zapatillas to laze around and think. He
got back just before five and went directly to his comp. Both Manny
and Manolo would e-mail their information.

Manny had very little about Avenidas. He had
probably been in the states only once and had stopped in Houston
for about two hours, then gone to New York, then returned to
Colombia, then back to Bocas. The office had been there for some
years, but mostly as a drop address for the stock deals and a
little real estate business.

Betina Blakley spent quite some time in
Houston for a number of years, but seldom in the past twenty four
years. She had friends and a few business acquaintances there.
There was a list of names she had most contact with.

Friends; Dona Forbes, Frieda Gormann, Glen
Lange, Helen Venders, Rebecca Venders, Louise Giotti, Frank
Bendetti, Charlene Dancy, Jim Bunch. Business; Samuel Levant,
Shirley Green, Harold Halverson, Josephina Cortez, Sharon Mills.
Nothing rang a particular bell. Each of the listed people had short
profiles. Bendetti was a bit of a wannabe thug, Green was into loan
sharking in a small way, Halverson was a contact in Colombia as
well as the states. Cortez and Mills were minor players in a
restaurant and bar business.

Clint got a bit of a chill at that one name.
Was Halverson Gina’s father or uncle?

H H y B B. That was a little scary. Gina?

She was with him. She didn’t find any chest
or kill anyone – but was she somehow connected to these people?