Clint Faraday Mysteries Collection B :This Job is Murder Collector's Edition (17 page)

Clint turned the thing off when he didn’t
want to be bothered all night with those people. He went in and
turned it on. It rang about three minutes later.

“
Faraday? Gault here. I’ve been trying
to reach you for hours.”

“
I turned the phone off for the night.
It's the only way to get any sleep lately. What can I do for
you?”

“
I need to know if Maria’s free
somewhere around here. She’s the only one I care about so far as
danger to myself is concerned. She is one cold bitch! I doubt she
ever feels anything at all.”

“
She was staying at Cecilio’s until
yesterday afternoon. He let her go. It seemed he thought she was
hiding from a witch in Haiti or something so locked her into a shed
where he could protect her. His Spanish sucks. He told her the
witch woman said she would put a spell on her that would keep
zombies away. She kept blabbing about him or her being turned into
zombies if he or she didn’t do something. He couldn’t understand
her, so protected her from zombies.”

“
Zombies?” Gault giggled. He said
Mittermann doesn’t answer his phone since midnight or a little
after when he tried to call him. He might have met the lovely Maria
unexpectedly. Clint said anything was possible. Maybe he met the
zombie instead.

After Gault rang off Clint called Luis and
said to CAREFULLY go to see what, if anything, was going on at
Obilio’s place. Luis said he would go in a few minutes. It seemed
quiet, but he had seen Pablo so would be careful to an extreme.

Judi came in and Clint said they could go to
breakfast at Don Chicho’s. She agreed and they strolled into town.
Mike Campbell was in Don Chicho’s with a local girl. They said
“hello”s and such. Mike was going to the hotel and the family were
going to head for San Andreas. Matt was talking about going back to
Chitre and Las Tablas to look for a place. He wanted to stay in
Panamá. Mike agreed, but Cori and Mark wanted to go back to the
states.

Everybody could go where they wanted. They
were an independent lot. Mike might stay here or go to David
instead of San Andreas. He wanted to go to Rio Sereno and Puerto
Armuelles like Clint had suggested.

Clint and Judi walked down to the ferry dock
and back just for the exercise. They spoke with a number of people
they knew and a couple of tourists who wanted to know the best
restaurants and such. They decided to go to Red Frog by boat, then
to go out in the Caribbean to see if the tuna were in and biting.
That would take most of the day and would let them relax. They
could use some relaxation.

They were out in the Caribbean catching a lot
of sun and not too much else when Clint’s phone buzzed. It was
Luis. He sounded excited.

“
I hope that animal doesn’t ever decide
to come after me!” Luis greeted.

“
Which animal is that?”

“
That Maria woman. You think Pablo was
torn up? You should see Mittermann! At least Pablo died fast.
Mittermann didn’t.”

“
She thinks he found her lists ... no,
that was what she was there for. To get rid of Gault and give him
the new list. His list was his contract. I guess she just didn’t
like him.”

“
She tortured him like that because she
didn’t like him?”

“
She’s not a very nice lady.” Clint
could picture Luis giving the phone the bird. They talked a bit
longer and Luis said the police chopper was coming in. He took it
on himself to call them to the comarca, seeing it was some gringo
who was dead.

Clint told Judi about it. She shuddered. It
could have been her and Ann when they had them at that cave. On
their way back to Clint’s house they got another call from Luis.
Maria was seen getting on a bus to David on the other side of the
mountain ten minutes ago. She would probably take the Calderas bus
to the highway, then get the Boquete bus at the junction.

Clint decided not to call Gault to warn him.
He could fend for himself with his special bunch.

They cleaned up and went to the Nine Degrees
for an expensive but very good dinner with Ben and a man he met at
the surf shop by the Hotel Bocas del Toro. John Guest. Judi said
she was jealous. She admired his taste in men.

They joked and had a good time for awhile.
Judi went to El Refugio with a man she was dating on and off. Clint
went to The Rip Tide and Ben went to The Iguana with his friend.
Clint talked with several people there, then went home for a decent
night’s rest. When he was passing the Mondo Taitu he saw a girl he
had met the year before. She decided she would go home with him.
Last year was so good she kept comparing him with other men and
they almost always came up short. She wanted to see if he still had
it.

The night wasn’t restful to any degree, but
it was a great night all the same!

In the morning he had an e-mail saying that
Dave would be back that afternoon. There were six or eight ads he
erased.

He would go to Chiriqui Grande today. He had
some unfinished business there. He could go on to Cusapín to visit
friends there for a day or two or return to Bocas Town. He would
wait until he was there to decide.

He got a call while he was in Chiriqui Grande
from Sam, the police jefe in David. It seemed that a woman’s body
was found close to Anastasia by the river. She had his name and
phone number on a piece of paper in her pocket, but no other
identification.

“
What did she look like?” Clint
asked.

“
Latina with some white and some negro,
pretty but not beautiful, about twenty three or thirty three. Hard
to tell. The autopsy would get it. Maybe her prints. She didn’t
seem to be local.

“
It’s probably Maria Garza,” Clint
said. “Pull her passport and check the prints to that.”

Sam said he’d try. It might work. He could
pull the passport photo off the net.

He called back ten minutes later and said it
was Maria.

“
How did she die?” Clint
asked.

“
We can’t find anything. She seems to
have gone down by the river, laid down and died.”

Clint was thoughtful, then smirked to
himself. Maybe Auber wanted her out of the way, too. He wondered if
maybe Gault hadn’t brought along some kind of voodoo poison from
Haiti. Maybe it was someone he didn’t even know about. He wouldn’t
worry about it.

He did sort of wonder if Gault was still
around. It was altogether possible he was dead of some strange
poison or something. That would fit the rest of this. If he was,
Auber was getting rid of all the people and evidence against her.
That would mean that whoever was doing the dirty work for her was a
total fool. He or she would then be the only evidence around
against her. He or she was handling the way people who knew too
much were disposed of.

Clint wondered about that piece of paper. Why
did Maria have that? Did she plan to come after him? Why? Would he
ever know enough about this for it to begin to make sense? He
didn’t believe for one second that he had all the answers. He might
not even have a large percent of them.

He would worry about it some other time. She
couldn’t come after him now, that was sure.

He headed back to Bocas Town. He wasn’t in
the mood for Cusapín today.

Back in Bocas Town Clint went to several
places to listen to the gossip. Douglas was sitting with Jim at the
Golden Grill. He sat to see if anything was new, but it was more of
the same. Tom came to join them and Clint left. Try as he might, he
simply couldn’t like the ass.

He went to the China to stock up on
groceries, then home with them. He got a call from Gault. It was
from Haiti. He wanted to know if Clint knew what was happening to
the group on the lists.

“
They’re getting knocked off. How many
of the eighteen of you are still alive?
A
”

“
Eighteen? So you also found the list I
buried. I thought you had.

“
There are eleven of us left. I
think.”

“
Did you get Maria or was it someone
else?”

“
She’s dead? Someone else.”

“
Claire seems to be getting rid of
possible witnesses against her.”

“
Someone will have to get rid of her.
Her voodoo can’t protect her when some of us know it’s mostly crap.
She’s very good with poisons I’m told.”

“
Yeah. She’s a homicidal maniac as far
as I’m concerned.”

“
Good description! I have to see if I
can stay alive or if it will be her. It can’t be both. She’s a
sociopathic homicidal maniac would be a bit more accurate, I
believe.

“
I like you, Clint. You aren’t scared
of any of us and shoot as straight as we’ll allow. Thanks.” He hung
up.

Clint sort of wondered if he would survive.
As he said, both of them couldn’t.

Clint sort of liked him, too. He had a
charm.

Obilio came to say he and Lila were going
home on the late bus. They would get to David late, would stay at a
friend’s place and go up to the house tomorrow.

“
Be careful what you eat and drink
there,” Clint warned. “Remember that Maria left that sleep potion
for Ann. She might have left some other nasty little surprises
around.”

“
Doesn’t need saying.”

This was probably over for their part. It had
been a little terrifying and a little fun and a little a lot of
other things. Clint still didn’t have a clue as to what was really
going on and probably never would.

He never would if Auber survived. Gault would
call to let him know he won. He would want to gloat.

C’est la vie!

He and Judi went to The Lemon Grass for
dinner. Dave came in to play a few numbers. He asked if anything
came of the message he left about the Campbell people.

“
Oh, it was fairly interesting. They
were alright. Not boring,” Clint answered.

Clint Faraday Mysteries

#8

Omen

© 2011 & 2013 by C. D. Moulton

This is a work of fiction Any resemblances to
persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental

Clint looks at the very strange colors in the
sunset. It is beautiful, in a weird sort of way – but those colors
are just beyond his experience.

Silvio, a close Indio friend, says it is an
omen. If the colors remain for one minute as they are, it is an
omen of good fortune. If the pink intensifies to red, it is an omen
of blood. Lots of blood.

Contents

Sky Signs

Omen

Who?

What?

Plots Within
Plots

The Thot
Plickens

Port Call

Strike Two!

Strike Three and You’re
Out!

Omen

Sky Signs

Clint Faraday, retired detective from the
states, strolled along the beach near Cusapín. The town on a
peninsula into the Caribbean in Panamá was nearby. He was in the
comarca visiting friends. He counted Indios as a majority of his
friends. He loved the people and he loved their culture.

It was getting into the later afternoon. He
was going to the mountaintop to watch the sunset with a couple of
his friends. It was a special night for some reason. One of the
friends, Silvio, was a sort of medicine man for the people.

Clint didn’t know – or much care – about the
reasons this was a special night. He knew he was one of the very
few non-Indios who were ever included in this kind of thing. He
felt deeply about his acceptance by these people. Very deeply.

He had never felt the attractions and
repulsions of people in the states to a noticeable extent. Here, it
was part of his life. He cared. He had learned to care his first
couple of months in Panamá. That was part of the major changes in
his life. His cynicism about lifestyle and people in the states was
unchanged. His acceptance of the lifestyle and culture of the
Indios was fairly complete. It was an inclusive philosophy where
the states and the Latinos and Blacks her lived in an exclusive
society – “exclusive” meaning “to exclude.”

He realized there were some Indios as low and
sleazy as many gringos and others he must deal with day to day. His
experience was that the Indios would go more than halfway in human
relationships. They were almost never arrogant or judgmental of
others. They made decisions and judgements about individuals, not
groups.

Silvio and three young men from the town came
out to meet him and strolled along the pristine beach for a few
minutes chatting. As the sun approached the mountaintop Silvio said
it was time. They headed to the road and got on horses. It would be
dark down here while the sun was still bright on the mountaintop.
It would be just at sunset when they reached the top.

This was the east side of the mountains. It
was light here before the dawn broke on the west side of the
mountains. It was dark a bit longer in the valleys than on the top,
of course.

Clint felt the reverence of the people he was
with. They were not religious in any real sense and this was not
about a god of any sort. It was something that centuries of
observing nature and cycles had taught them. It was not about, as
many estrañeros believed, voodoo and magic. It was the nature of
the earth telling them those things people who lived close to,
among, nature needed to know. Conditions that indicated weather
changes and such things in nature were shown plainly to the people
who lived with that nature, not to those who fought it. The
fighters had their science that was slowly revealing to them the
secrets the people living with it had known since the beginnings of
their evolution. It was a matter of knowing the language of nature
and how to read and hear it.