Steve Martini - Guardian of Lies

Liquida was sure he was not one of the men he had seen the other night, certainly not the man at the gate with the pick, and the build was wrong for his friend, who Liquida had seen standing at the corner.

Suddenly the man lifted his head out of the car and looked back at the house.

Liquida leaned away from the window wondering if somehow the guy had sensed that there was someone inside. His mind quickly turned to alternatives, finding some other way out and postponing his meeting with the woman, when he heard the engine start and the car door slam.

By the time Liquida looked out, the big black sedan was backing up the street at full speed, toward the corner. It backed into the intersection taking the turn. The car shifted into forward and a second later it was gone.

Liquida stood at the window looking in both directions along the street. There were cars parked at the curb, mostly on the other side. All of them appeared to be empty. Liquida had entered the house quickly, standing at the gate as if he had a key, using his pick. He was certain the house was not being watched. Still, for a place that was supposedly deserted, there were entirely too many visitors to make it feel comfortable.

He glanced at his watch again. Then he headed down the steps, through the dining room and into the kitchen. He picked up a small brown glass bottle from the counter where it rested on top of a thick piece of folded cotton cloth. Liquida held the bottle to the light. He had already checked it twice. He wanted to be sure there was enough ether left inside to do the job. He satisfied himself once more, then put the bottle back down on top of the cloth and began pacing the floor. He was hoping the plane wasn’t late, or God forbid, that she had missed her connecting flight in Panama.

Two minutes, seńor , to get my men into position at the back of the hotel.” The Costa Rican lieutenant was in uniform, talking in English to the FBI agent standing on the street next to him, and then in Spanish into the microphone clipped to the shoulder loop of his shirt as he gave instructions to his officers strung out around the Sportsmens Lodge.

“Take your time. They’re not going anywhere.” One of the FBI agents was assembling some forms from a briefcase in the backseat of the black SUV parked across the street from the front entrance to the lodge.

His partner checked the clip in his.357 Sig Sauer, then slid it back into the handle of the pistol, slapped it home, and pulled the slide back, chambering the first round.

Seńor?

Yes?

Are you expecting them to be armed? My men will need to know.”

“Not as far as we know. Oh, you mean the gun?” said the agent. “That’s just force of habit. I doubt that they’re armed. Can’t give you any guarantees, of course, but the suspect is a lawyer.”

“Abogado?”

“Sí.”

“He’s charged with murder,” said the agent in the car. “Tell your people not to take any chances.”

“What about the other man? The big one.”

“The other man is an employee. We believe he’s a private investigator. We simply want to detain him to keep him out of the way. We have no warrant on him. Just make sure he doesn’t get in the way. We’ll let him go when we’re done.”

“He is very big,” said the lieutenant.

“Yes.”

The Costa Rican slowly moved away with his hand pressed to the microphone clipped on his shoulder. He turned his head and spoke into it again.

A few seconds later one of the cops near the gate at the hotel’s front entrance lifted his twelve-gauge shotgun and worked the pump, loading the first round of double-ought shot. The weapon was an ugly thing with a pistol grip where the shoulder stock should have been.

Following my conversation with Harry, Herman and I packed quickly. We wait just inside the glass door leading to the bar until the help goes into the kitchen. Then we hustle through the bar and down the steps to the green wooden door at the back of the Sportsmens Lodge.

We don’t stop to pay the bill. Everything was on the credit card. We were booked through that night. So as far as we are concerned, they can charge it.

We are out the door and down the street, hauling our luggage less than five minutes after I hung up with Harry. At least in daylight it would be easy to find the steps leading up to Katia’s street. We will have one more shot to get the camera and the pictures, then either way I would have to run. Off to Colombia without a lead. The way we planned it, Herman would stick around, maybe wait for Katia’s mother and make another attempt to find the camera if he thought it would do any good.

This morning the lion at the zoo isn’t growling. He is probably asleep, something I hadn’t had much of the night before. Thoughts of the man with the pockmarked face kept me awake.

“I’m missin’ one of my picks,” says Herman. “Think I dropped it last night.”

We were walking quickly, both of us breathing hard.

“Can you open the gate without it?”

“Think so. I’m gonna have to,” said Herman. “Just hoping there’s not too many people out on the street. If neighbors see what we’re doin’, they’re gonna call the cops. Where do you wanna stash the stuff?” Herman is talking about the luggage.

“I was thinking we might put it behind that tree, near the fence where I was hiding last night when you pulled up in the taxi.”

“Good,” says Herman. “Let’s hope nobody sees it.”

Just like clockwork the woman showed up, right on time.

As she walked through the front door carrying her suitcase and purse, Liquida stepped out of the dark bathroom just off the entry. He cupped the ether-soaked cloth over her mouth and nose as he wrapped his other arm around her and lifted her off the floor. She struggled for maybe ten seconds before she went limp.

He kept the cloth over her face for about ten more seconds to make sure she was out cold. Then he carried her to the kitchen and laid her body on the floor in front of the stove before returning to the entry. He glanced at the gate. She hadn’t had a chance to lock it. Liquida left it that way. He simply closed the front door. He left her suitcase where it was, just inside the entry. This way it would look as if she’d returned home, smelled the fumes, gone into the kitchen to investigate, and been overcome by the propane before the explosion and fire killed her.

He went back into the kitchen and arranged her body on the floor with just enough artistry to make it look natural. He would have picked her up and dropped her but Liquida was afraid that the neighbors might hear the noise through the common wall next door and come to see what had happened.

He unscrewed the cap from the small brown bottle, turned his head away, and soaked the cloth in more ether. He emptied the bottle. The odor was making Liquida light-headed. He quickly threaded the cap back on the bottle and laid the dripping cloth over the woman’s mouth and nose. This way there was no chance that the anesthetic would wear off. He used ether instead of chloroform because ether was highly flammable. By the time the fire department found the body, there would be nothing left of the cloth.

He put the brown bottle in his pocket, stepped back a few feet, and checked the body positioning one last time. Liquida wanted to make sure she would get the full effect of the fiery blast. Then he picked up the model airplane remote control from the countertop and pressed the button.

This turned the tiny servomotor opening the valve. Propane began to leak from the stove. He had already extinguished all the pilot lights on the burners to guard against any accident, a premature fire that might only smoke up the place. He listened for several seconds. After he was satisfied that the propane was flowing nicely, he pressed the other button setting the electronic timer. As the propane fumes spilled out into the lower level of the house, the clock was now running. In twenty minutes the tiny electronic chip operating the timer would trigger the spark emitter and the blast would rattle the entire block.