Murder Can Be Messy

dead man talking
dave calls clint from tobobé, where he has met armitage lincoln, a psychic investigator. army has been taking a lot of information from an old man, francisco escobar, who knows hundreds of tales from times past. trouble was, the stories he told, like he was part of, were more from a couple of hundred years ago.
a body is found in the yuca plot , pancho escobar!
francisco did not come last night.

killer deal
clint is in david for supplies. he is at peter’s bar, where he meets sam hires, who says he’s made a killer deal for a fishing boat. it will run out of mariato, which clint knows.
sam probably didn’t mean “killer” deal the way it turned out - or did he?

dead serious
clint is visiting friends in santiago when a man from brasil says he is going to stand up to the local excuse for a mafia. a local lawyer says, “you can’t be serious!”
“dead serious,” he replies.
then the bodies start showing up. they are the bodies of the man’s associates and friends. is the mafia eliminating problems before they start? then why not kill sargento?

death from natural causes
clint receives a call from rico hernandez, police, the darien. he says dave said to call. there is a body of a man known to hang around with drug dealers and mafia types.
“how was he killed?”
“tortured several ways, then executed. it’s what i want to call natural causes.”
“natural causes?”
“the people he was involved with? torture and execution are natural causes!”

a vacation to die for
tammy sheridan, a valley girl, like, you know, those in the eighties, won a vacation to die for in a contest. first stop was cancun, second stop, managua, third stop, bocas del toro, forth stop, cartagena, fifth stop, rio de janiero.
she didn’t make the fourth stop.
tammy was considered a little weird, but was liked. no one had any reason to kill her.
somebody did.

road kill
clint gets a call from rosario puentes, police, to say there was a road kill found on the bridge near chiriqui. seeing he was in david, would he like to help the investigation?
“road kill? so what?”
“fe was a man named ernesto barco. he was popular. we don’t know who would kill him or why. it doesn’t look like it could have been a hit and run.”
oh. that kind of road kill.

dead still
“i was passing by on the road and saw them there by the rock. i watched a few seconds, but they were dead still.
“well, i saw there was a squirrel cuckoo in that bush, so figured they were watching it. they spook easy.
“the cuckoo flew off, so i came down here, after i called and they didn’t answer.
“there they were! like that!”
“like that!” was a bullet in the head.

the murder option
“we have a few options with these problems,” carl wright said to the community meeting. “we can try to make them pass a law, we can make it a community project to embarrass people who do things to degrade the life here. we can do both, is what i suggest. people who throw garbage from cars or anything else on the streets have to be made responsible for breaking their bad habits.
“if anyone else has a suggestion, i’m listening!”
“you could strangle them!” sam west said sourly. “i think I’d get a kick out of murdering that kind of trash! they make a fine community like this into something decent people want to avoid!”
you can take such things far too literally.

dead giveaway
“clint? amanda presley here. i met you in david, two months ago? you said to call if there were any problems about the place i bought?
“well, i’m not sure if it’s a scam or not, but they want me to sign a thing in spanish, and i only have what they said it says. does that sound like it could be a scam?”
“it sounds like a dead giveaway. tell them to kiss your ass!”
they made a plan.
then her brother and ex-husband ended up dead. why them? why not amanda? everything was in her name.

bloody sunrise
it was a beautiful starting day. the sunrise was clear and clean.
then, the body in the river.