Clint Faraday Collection C: Murder in Motion Collector's Edition (35 page)

He stared at the keyboard. A was the first
letter on the second line. Did that mean ... no. It was used alone
so line number on the keyboard didn’t mean much.

He counted in every way he could think of. A
was the second letter if you went from top left downward as the
keys lay.

Y was number 16 by that system. It fit. O was
#28. The code was something he came up with fast so it was easy to
break it fast. He could read the pages.

Investigacion finca por Williams. Esta
grande con vista magnifico del mar. Tiene tambien una problema con
DDP. Cuestion contra plano. Posiblemente hay problemas con
aplicacion por titulo. Hay cuidado!

(Investigation of the land for Williams. It
is large with a magnificent view of the sea. I have a problem with
the ROP. There is also a question against the site plan. There will
possibly be problems with any application for a title. Take
care!)

The
second stated:
There was a man from the agency who was supposed to be a
thief who worked with thieves. The land is there and it is real. It
is doubtful that a title will be issued for that land until many
questions are answered. There may be several who claim to own it.
It is from a long time ago when there were not good records kept of
such land that no use for could be found at that time. It was not
accessible and there could be no certain way to survey there. My
recommendation is to seek land elsewhere unless a government
guarantee can be obtained. I will find the names of the persons
doing this that Mr. Williams can use to bring investigation
against.

That person was on this bus. There was one
real estate person on the bus. Estevez. He was a lawyer and lawyers
here are famous for being the worst kinds of crooks. (Really! As
bad as or worse than the states!)

Clint
knew better than to concentrate totally on a single suspect in a
murder case regardless of his personal opinion. Estevez was a prime
suspect, but not the only suspect. He would be on the bus because
Santamaria was on the bus. If he drove a black Mitsubishi with two
stickers in specific places and a Panamanian plate that began with
542 he would concentrate
almost
exclusively on him. He had been burned with sure things
enough in the past to know better than to ever take anything as
100%.

His next step was ... what?

Opportunity. Okay, he probably had that. All
of them, with the noted exceptions, did.

Didn’t they?

Santamaria had been dead for less than an
hour when found. That established a very short period of time when
the murder could have taken place. From what Clint knew about
fixing the time of death, Sucha hadn’t been dead much longer than
three hours. Probably closer to two. Learn who had opportunity from
four thirty until six thirty. Anyone near that culvert back there
would be noted when anyone went back that way.

Clint called them all together and asked that
they establish where they were from four thirty until about six
thirty.

Guerra was with her children. Dona Comacho
was in the same culvert and would know if anyone left from the
front. The children would know if anyone left from the rear, though
it could be easy to see prints or whatever if anyone looked back
there. It was muddy.

Jose and Ana were together. Neither could
have left the other didn’t know about. Everyone was skittish and
woke up at the least noise. The Indios, except Vargas, were
together and no one left the culvert.

The Sandros family were together and no one
came or went.

The gringos were out of it.

Dona could have left. It was just
possible.

Arturo Taylor could have left.

Guillermo Robinson could have left.

Pedro Vargas could have left.

David Estevez could have left.

Five out of twenty. It was drawing in.

Salvador Mario said Vargas did not leave his
culvert. He could see it from where he was and he didn’t sleep
after about two o’clock when his father came. He had plenty of
sleep and felt it would be better if one of them stayed awake to
watch. Sancho Lopez said he could see Salvador in the end of the
culvert most of the night. He didn’t sleep, either. This was on his
bus and he was horrified about it and couldn’t sleep. He wished he
had saved a beer because that would let him sleep a little.

Four out of twenty.

He thought about things, then decided to try
something else. He asked how many of them could drive, had
licenses. Panamanians. He wasn’t about to let a foreigner use his
car in a case like this. The police would harass the hell out of
them if they were stopped. Judi raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say
anything. She knew Clint had something in mind. Sancho and Cecilio
had to stay with the bus.

Maria Guerra, Jose Ricardo, all the Sandros,
Guillermo Robinson and David Estevez drove. Taylor was probably
out. Three out of twenty. His prime suspect was still in it. The
noose was drawing closed.

How trite!

Clint needed a way to eliminate two of three.
He could probably put Dona out of it. Robinson and Estevez were his
real suspects – and he didn’t see Robinson as a killer. Trouble
was, he couldn’t see Estevez as a killer, either. As much as he
wanted it to be him, as sure as he was, personally, he didn’t see
it. There was something missing.

Judi got him aside and asked what that was
about. Clint explained about his theory that someone driving a car
was neck deep in it. He could describe the car, all he had to do
was connect one of them to it. She said she’d find out if any of
them had a black Mitsubishi.

Clint was talking with Sancho a few minutes
later and asked if he had a way to find who owned a black
Mitsubishi with a sticker in the window and one on the bumper that
had a Panamanian license plate that started 542.

“
Not out
here. Five minutes maximum back in Chitre,” he replied. “What kind
of stickers?”

“
I
couldn’t read them in the pictures.”

“
What
colors?”

“
Green
and a sort of bronzy color with black letters.”

“
Black
letters that said Hertz? It was a rented car. The driver should
have the return receipt with him.”

“
Oh,
shit! Sucha had a receipt for a rented car! I saw it in his
wallet!”

He went to his car, unlocked the trunk and
took out the little box of evidence for Sucha. There was a receipt
in his wallet for a 2009 Mitsubishi 2 door sedan. He turned it in
just before getting on the bus.

“
What the
unholy
hell
is going on
here?!” Clint demanded. “That would mean that he killed Santamaria,
now someone’s killed
him
! Do we have
two murderers on this bus?”

“
I hope
sincerely not! One is far too many!” Sancho cried.

“
Now I’m
not even sure I’m looking in the right place for motive. This
is
not
anything like I was
thinking.

“
Or is
it?”

He went back to his car. Judy reported she
hadn’t found anyone who noted any of the others in a car at any
time. He said he found who had the car. Sucha.

“
What
does that add to your case?”

“
It adds
zilch minus! It destroys part of what I was trying to prove or
disprove. It makes part of it irrelevant. This is one of those one
step forward and two back deals.”

“
I’m
getting a bit worried, now,” she replied. “When it was something
you could maybe understand it wasn’t so scary. Now we have a
nutcase who’s killing people and it’s someone we all know who can
pose as a regular person.

“
Clint, I
know you argue, but it has to be the people from Colón. This is
getting to be a regular scene there and they’re the only alibis
they have. If they’re in it together they’ll naturally back each
other up with the same rehearsed story.”

Clint
nodded slowly. That was something he’d considered. He wanted to
reject that it may be more than one.

There wasn’t much to do. He did remember what
was said about going out the back end of the culverts. It was muddy
there and would keep footprints for months. All of them ended in
that mud pit.

He climbed on top and went to the end. There
were no footprints back there at all.

He noted that he could grab the top and swing
up with a little effort. It would be a lot easier to go back down
from up there.

Would anyone note seeing somebody on top? Was
anyone ever looking up there?

One person might. He went to ask Salvador if
he saw anyone on top of the pipes at all during the night.

No, but he could only see the front ends. The
back ends were behind and he couldn’t see through the pipes.

Well, he now knew a minimum amount about
something indefinable. He could use a cup of really strong
coffee.

Animal Sounds

Judi came in to say that Nilsa, the daughter
of Maria, said she heard some animals during the night. She thought
it was just wild animals. They were bleating about something. It
was like dogs barking, but it wasn’t dogs and it wasn’t barking.
She just didn’t know whether it was earlier or later.

Clint thought, then went back to Salvador to
ask if he’d heard the animals and when was it? Early or late?

“
Early in
the morning and late at night. Both. Monkeys. They make noises all
night.”

“
Oh.
Howler monkeys.”

“
Whiteface monkeys, too. The Whiteface are not so noisy at
night. Only two times last night. Perhaps two hours before the
light. It was their call that there is a snake. It is more high and
more long. It was not too close.”

Like a bleat. Four o’clock or thereabout
, Clint thought.
Twice. The killer coming and the
killer going – but why that far away?

He thanked Salvador and sat to talk with him
for a few minutes. He was more than average bright. He observed
everything around without commenting upon it unless asked. Clint
asked who was the killer. Did he have an opinion?

“
I have
what I think, but it may be wrong and for the wrong
reasons.”

So he wouldn’t tell what it was. The Indios
are like that. They’re perfectly well aware that they would tend to
consider that a certain person was the killer simply because they
didn’t like that person. There was no one here he would tend not to
like because everyone was trying to get along.

It would be the natural culture clash between
the Indios and the blacks. Salvador was aware of that and wouldn’t
say anything against them unless he had very solid proof.

He went back to the car and talked with Judi.
She agreed the Indios wouldn’t speak against the blacks because
they knew they didn’t get along with them. The fact those were from
Colón added to that.

“
The
blacks don’t have any such thing,” she said. “Elena keeps saying it
has to be the Indios. They’re that kind of people.

“
I told
her it was blacks from Colón who had that reputation, she knew it
was mostly not true, but she does the same thing to the Indios. It
goes a mile over her head.”

“
Tell me
about it! People and their prejudices are the same everywhere and
all the time. The Spanish will be sure it’s the gringos. The
gringos will probably be the only ones who don’t have an opinion
because they know it’s prejudice. All they want to do is get out of
here to finish their vacations.”

“
I want
to get out of here, myself. It doesn’t have anything to do with
vacations. It’s got a lot to do with dead bodies. Everything was so
good until Santamaria’s body was found, now it’s all suspicion and
fear. All of us. We know there’s a killer, maybe a psycho, among
us. It could be almost anyone.”

“
Don’t
say anything to anybody, but it’s down to three.”

She looked thoughtful, then nodded. “You
won’t say who they are, huh?”

“
One of
them. Somebody from outside.” She gave him the one finger salute.
That was the most unlikely of all the possibilities. If anyone was
anywhere in the near area they would know about it. The Indios, in
particular, would know in minutes,

Clint strolled toward the bus, thinking.
There might be something on that bus that they missed. Something in
a place where it would seem to be natural. There was a nagging that
he had seen or heard something.

What?

He sat on a large boulder that had rolled
onto the edge of the road to think. What had he seen? What was
nagging at him?

He closed his eyes and mentally went through
everything he’d seen about that bus. The laptop. The memory
sticks.

It had something to do with that laptop. He
got the nagging when he thought about it.

Okay. They found the laptop case with no
laptop, only some cell phones and chargers.

Not the laptop! The case! Those chargers! One
was a standard type that would work with most cellulars here. The
other was a fancy thing that only fit certain expensive types.
Usually only one model.

So? Did that mean that a cellular phone was
missing? He hadn’t found anything among them that was at all out of
the ordinary here. No expensive ... but there was that one man
using a satellite phone. He said there was no signal, but Clint was
sure he was talking into it.

It was Santamaria. The nag was that his
satellite phone was not among those found. He had called out. He
did have a signal.