Clint Faraday Mysteries Collection B :This Job is Murder Collector's Edition (19 page)

He stopped at the few houses along the way to
chat with friends and make new ones. It was a very pleasant time.
He got back into town just at dusk, had a good meal and spent into
the night talking with people. No one knew of any recent strangers
from the states or Argentina or anywhere else. Dave had come there
the day before and was wandering in the mountains somewhere,
according to reports. His ladyfriend was staying at Elena’s and he
would come in at odd hours to unload his camera into his laptop,
then be gone again. He would be there in the morning. Maybe Clint
would like to go on an excursion with him. It was usually fun. When
he was going and the guys didn’t have anything to do they would go
along with him. He was 72 years old and they had a hard time
keeping up with him.

It was a bit after eleven when he came in.
Clint told him about the scam he suspected.

“
I’m planning to walk the beaches for
about ten kilometers in the morning down that way. I heard there
were a couple of people here two or three weeks ago who were asking
about the area down there. I’d like to see what’s up.”

“
Want company? Maybe I’ll tag along.
Never know. Might find something new and different.”

“
I damned well know I will! I found no
less than nine varieties of orchids that aren’t listed as being in
Panamá and three that are probably not listed anywhere! These are
fairly close to where people’ve looked. Down there has probably
never been explored by any botanist.”

Clint listened to how he found the new
species, but wouldn’t file for names if they actually were new
species. He would let the kids (Kids? They were in their twenties!)
file through the comarca. They could name them after themselves or
each other, their families, or whatever.

Clint got a good night’s sleep. They would
set out at five or five thirty. He had tried to keep up with Dave
on a couple of the trips and knew it was no joke that the younger
ones had trouble keeping the pace.

It was partly that he kept going off on
tangents. The Indios knew that moving a bit more slowly meant you
could go all day, but getting in a hurry meant you would tire
yourself out before long. Dave didn’t tire out. He never slept more
than four hours a night, normally. He had energy to spare. It was
his body schedule. He ate more than most and worked it off. Clint
did the same to an extent. He ate a lot and moved a lot. He didn’t
put on weight and could get it back off in a couple of days when he
started to get the spare tire bulge.

The dawn was beautiful with a pinkish sky
with silver streaks over the water. They set off with two Indio
youths who would tag along for a couple of hours or more. Andres
and Moises. The parrots and monkeys were getting their noisy day
started, too. They were both loud and funny. They would put on a
show for the fun of it.

They were about two kilometers from Cusapín
when they came to a little stream coming off the mountains. It was
rocky and shallow, but the scrub and trees hanging over it were
covered with orchids and bromelliads, anthuriums and any number of
other epiphytes. Dave spent a couple of minutes taking pictures of
a couple of them. He explained that the yellow and brown one was an
Oncidium that was only found in Brazil. He wasn’t in the least
surprised to find it there.

“
No one ever looked for them here so,
naturally, they didn’t find them.”

They moved on. Four hours later they were
eight kilometers (more or less) from Cusapín and hadn’t seen anyone
for the last three kilometers. There were footprints going from
where a boat had been drug onto the beach into the forest and back
again. Moises said the prints were about two days old. There was
nothing in the forest there but forest.

They looked around and went on. Ten minutes
later they found another set of footprints. Clint noticed
everything about the area where the others were found and looked
for something that would distinguish this spot. Nothing. The area
was basically identical with no noticeable, to him, features.

Ten minutes later they found the third set.
Andres said they went in normal and came out heavy. They were
carrying something.

Clint and Moises went over the area inside
the forest carefully, but didn’t find anything definite. There was
a small area where there might have been something.

“
No pirate treasure here,” Clint said.
“Maybe a drug pickup?” Moises looked thoughtful and
shrugged.

“
If they found what they were after
here there won’t be anymore beachings,” Moises pointed out. Clint
nodded.

Dave found a lot more things that weren’t
“supposed” to be in Panamá. He would stay in this area and move
slowly on and inward. Andres would stay with him and Moises would
go on with Clint. They found another set of prints about half a
kilometer farther along. There was nothing to distinguish the area
that Clint could see. He asked Moises what was different about the
spots, but he said they were the same, so far as he could tell, as
everywhere else along there. “Maybe it is something that can be
seen from the water, but not from the beach?”

That was an idea. Clint went to the edge of
the water and looked back over what he could see. Nothing seemed
different to him.

He shrugged and they went on down the beach.
There was another spot, this one no more than a day old, about
three quarters of a kilometer farther along. Clint went into the
water a short distance and said that there was a very tall tree
back a short distance. Moises came out and studied it and said it
was an old nispero.

Clint thought hard and said he had noticed
another one at the last place they found prints. It was directly
back from the landing, as this one was. He knew nispero lived for
thousands of years so these could have been there a couple of
hundred years as standout features. He had a case awhile back where
pirate treasure was found by determining where runnels had been
fifty to a hundred years ago. The Indios could tell very closely by
the vegetation in the area.

“
I wonder. Is there another map that
uses a nispero as a loci?” he asked of no one. Moises said there
were probably dozens of maps that used nispero as a marker, but
they identified land or such, usually. It was possible they were
used to locate other things, but what things?

“
Pirate treasure, I’d
think.”

“
There isn’t any pirate treasure along
here. It would have been found years ago. A nispero wouldn’t be
used for that. Storms knock them down. No pirate would hide
anything along these beaches, anyway. Someone could watch from two
kilometers away and take it when they left.”

“
I know that, and you know that. Maybe
some stupid gringo with a lot of money would NOT know
that.”

Moises grinned and said that was a distinct
possibility. Gringos were ridiculously easy to trick in that kind
of way.

Clint gave him the finger. “How long ago were
these prints made?” he asked.

Moises said maybe yesterday, maybe very early
today. Clint looked thoughtful, then said maybe he would go on a
bit more. Maybe they would see something.

“
They would be easy to see if they went
on the water. That is exactly why there will be no pirate treasure.
They are not far if they are here.”

Clint agreed. They would go a little farther,
then back to where Dave was looking for orchids.

Ten minutes later they came to an 18' Century
with two 225 horse Yamaha engines, beached. No one seemed to be
around. They went to the boat for a closer look, then followed the
prints to a few meters inside the forest There was blood on the
ground and shrubs. A lot of it. Moises studied it for a minute and
said it was the kind of thing that bled a lot, but wasn’t fatal –
immediately.

“
How can you tell?”

“
There’s a lot of blood, but no
body.”

Some things are simple to figure. Clint could
have done that!

“
Of course, it may simply be that the
body or bodies, there’s a lot of blood, were moved.”

“
Then there would have to be another
beaching close,” Clint pointed out.

They went back to the beach and moved along a
bit. Nothing. Moises shrugged when Clint said that meant very
little.

“
Very little? Why?”

“
Maybe they didn’t beach the boat.
Maybe it was just a few meters offshore.”

Moises agreed with a nod. He said there would
be blood in the sand in that case, so they looked for it. They
didn’t find anything definite, but Moises said there was a place
where it seemed water was poured onto the sand. That could have
been to wash away blood.

Clint went back to search the Century. There
wasn’t much to find. They were about to head back to Dave and
Andres when a man and woman came from the forest a short distance
away to ask what Clint wanted in their boat.

Moises gave Clint a look and said, “It is not
Mr. Faraday who wants to know why this boat is here on the comarca.
This is Indigeno land in the comarca and I want to know what you
are doing here. If it is something legitimate you would have told
us in Cusapín that you were here and for what reason.

“
I ask you, What are you doing on my
land?”

“
We’re just looking for certain plants
along the coast,” the woman said after the man translated. “We have
permission from the government to go anywhere on national
land.”

“
This is not national land. It is
comarca. The government in Panamá City cannot tell you that you may
come here,” Moises said sternly. “We have no objection if people
wish to study, but there are places here that are not to be entered
by anyone not of the comarca – and few of the comarca. That is why
we will insist that you make yourselves and your intentions known.
We will tell you the places you may not enter.

“
I will ask that you go to Cusapín and
speak with the council before you again enter comarca
land.”

“
We are on the beach. Everything below
the high water line is public property!” she said
haughtily.

“
No. It is not.” Moises
returned.

“
The law says that everything is public
to the high water line!” she snapped.

“
True, in national territory,” Clint
said. “This isn’t national territory. It’s comarca. The law’s
different. You have to get permission from the council to be
anywhere on this land.”

“
Like you did?” the man
snarled.

“
Mr. Faraday is with me. Isn’t that
obvious?” from Moises. “I begin to wonder exactly which plants you
seek. You have no plants and there are none in the boat. You carry
no camera.”

“
Uh, we’re with the medical
association. We’re looking for medicinal plants,” the woman said.
“I’m Doctora Elizabeth Channing. This is Doctor Carl
Conrad.”

“
What medical association?” Clint
asked.

“
Er, uh, The World United Medical
Research Project. United Nations,“ Conrad answered.

“
Well, just go to Cusapín and talk with
Obilio. I’m sure he’ll say it’s Okay for you to study plants,”
Clint said quickly. “After all, we came out with Dr. Wullschlaegel
and Dr. Dodson. He works with Dr. Maduro with medicinal plants, as
I’m sure you know. And with Williams.”

“
Oh, yes! They did the work with those,
uh, Grobiarcanth plants, I believe?”

“
More with Scaphyglottis, if I
remember. I don’t know much about the scientific names,” Clint
said.

“
Oh, yes. I think you’re right. Mendel
did the work with, uh, the other,” Conrad said. “We’ll go to
Cusapín for a permit in the morning. We didn’t know we needed
one.”

They said a few more words, then shoved the
boat into the water and headed back toward Cusapín. Moises asked
what that was about.

“
I don’t think there’s anything like
whatever she said. Dave talked about Dodson and Lowe and others. I
made a joke about an orchid called a Wullschlaegeliella Dave was
studying. Maduro did a lot of work with Panamanian orchids.
Williams was eighty or so years ago and has been dead for twenty
some-odd. Anyone with a doctorate in botany would know about him in
Panamá. Dave has a list of more than a hundred species of
Scaphyglottis orchids found in Panamá. He’s found a few he thinks
are new.

“
I wonder if there’s a body or two back
in there. There were certainly no cuts on either of those
two.”

Moises nodded and said he would have a search
made tomorrow. This would be in the area of the omen – and there
was certainly blood!

“
Blood, yes. But whose?” Clint asked.
“I still don’t have a clue as to what this is about.”

“
Or who is behind it,” Moises agreed.
“Or who those two really are.”

“
Who, indeed,” Clint said. They headed
back to find Dave and Andres only a few meters from where they left
them. Dave said he had pictures of no less than forty seven
different species of orchids within an area of no more than 200
square meters of brush and rocks by that little stream. One might
be a new species.

“
Many Scaphyglottis?” Moises
asked.

“
Lord, yes! They’re always all over
this kind of place here – and what in hell do you know about
Scaphyglottis?”

“
I was talking with Dodson and Maduro
about them. Scaphyglottis and Wullschlaegeliellas.”