CHAPTER SEVEN
The Unexpected
They got off the bus at the stop on the highway near San Carlos. Walking a half kilometer to Joe’s house in the heat was making them sweat heavily. They were only planning to stay for three days and moving on from there up to Costa Rica. Just enough time for a short visit and catch up since the last visit. They knocked on the locked gate and yelled at the house. A noise came from inside and slowly the housekeeper walked out with keys in hand. “Hola, how are you?” TJ said.
She looked at TJ and Athena like they had arrived from a leper colony. There was a scowl on her brown face. She mumbled a greeting at the two of them and unlocked the gate for them to enter. “How’s the cleaning business going? Everything shiny and put in its place?” TJ said it in English with a low tone so she wouldn’t hear. She was not a woman to joke with, so he let it go. Walking past her and on to the front porch, Joe was waiting and smiling at them. “Hi! How are you two?” “You look healthy enough Dad”, TJ responded. “There’s cold beer in the fridge and food too. Help yourselves to whatever”. Joe had a nearly empty beer open that was getting warm on the table, so TJ took three cold ones out of the fridge and into the backyard pool area. Putting the beers on the table he looked around the yard and pool area. Nothing much had changed from their last visit to the house.
“Sorry dad but we can only stay for three days as we’ve got some things on the go right now. Hope ya don’t mind” as TJ banged his cold beer against his dad’s bottle. “That’s fine with me son”. He took a drink from the bottle and wiped the foam from his chin. “You know I appreciate the company for whatever amount of time you two can manage. So, tell me what’s new?” They got caught up with everything that had been happening in their lives, while they ate some food and washed it down with a few more beers each. Athena was making apologies to get to bed first. It had been a long day of travel. She went to the front bedroom where they stayed whenever they visited. It was a smaller room with a double bed, a couple of antique paintings that Joe had brought from Canada and a ceiling fan with blades that had been installed partly upside down. They had brought with them various electronics at the start of this trip. Gadgets such as two laptop computers, both updated and expensive models from Canada. A new digital camara that TJ was going to use with his new hobby in photography of local wildlife. The cell phones that were updated models sold in Canada as well as memory cards and adapters as needed. Since they always used local bank machines as they traveled, they never carried large sums of money with them. Same for jewelry, as that was left safely in Canada. When they traveled around, they liked to wear the cheap hippy type ornaments without real monetary value.
Their belongings were placed on the tile floor against the far wall and out of the way as much as possible. After wishing his father good night, TJ entered the bedroom. He undressed from the denim shorts and t-shirt while climbing into bed. Both felt tired and wanted a good night’s rest. Athena turned off the side table light and yawned loudly. The only light coming into the room was from the large window looking out toward the quiet front street. It was a starry night with a half-moon in the sky hanging high up and enough light shined down to make the front yard visible in the dark. The windows in the house had iron bars attached to the window frame, making it impossible for anyone to force their way in. Everyone felt secure inside the house knowing that the metal door was locked from inside with a dead bolt. In the hot climate sleep was pleasant but exhausting at times. No noise came from the area at night except for the occasional dog barking. It all made for a peaceful frame of mind as they drifted off.
TJ opened his eyes when he heard a very faint noise. It sounded like a branch was rubbing lightly against the roof. He listened attentively for several minutes, but the noise did not repeat itself. Soon he drifted back to sleep only to be awoken a second time by Athena. “Did you hear that?” she asked. “No, I didn’t, but earlier I heard a strange noise. Did you hear the dog’s bark?” TJ asked. Joe had two small dogs that stayed outside at night. He didn’t like the dogs laying on the furniture or running under his feet in the kitchen, so they stayed on the porch. Athena looked out the window at the front porch lit by the moon light. Both dogs were laying on their sides with heads turned toward the front gate. No movement came from either dog which meant they were probably sleeping. Beside them were little brown objects smeared across the tiles. She turned away from the window and walked over to the bed climbing under the light sheets. TJ also had a quick look out the window but felt too drowsy and careless to notice much. Once again closing their eyes, they drifted off to a deep heavy sleep as the night was passing by.
A noise again woke the two, and TJ decided to have a look around the house with Athena close behind. Turning the bedroom light on and opening the bedroom door, he walked into the living room. “Nothing unusual in any way,” he whispered as he stepped into the middle bedroom and pushed on the light switch. He pushed the switch again; no light came on while the room stayed dark. Behind the bed was the window where he noticed the light fabric curtains were almost closed. The closet door was closed to keep the cluttered pile of clothes piled and hanging out of sight. He walked out of the room and spent a minute in the bathroom with the need to relieve himself. The sound of his pee hitting the toilet was loud in the small room. Yawning loudly, he stepped back into the bedroom with Athena ready to tuck herself back in. Just as he got back on the bed there was a loud noise and a crash. It came from the middle bedroom he had checked only a couple minutes before. When he looked towards the door, the knob was turning. Suddenly with a loud jar the door burst open! A man was standing there looking at the two, who were still sitting on the bed in total disbelief. He held a knife in his right hand and walked toward them.
In Spanish the man said not to fight back and be quiet if they wanted to stay alive. Behind the man there was a second masked person holding a gun pointed at TJ and Athena. More noise was coming from the middle bedroom as another person climbed through the window opening. After which yet another entered. In total four men came in the house. Two were young and seemed to be timid or inexperienced robbers. In the master bedroom there was noise as Joe and the housekeeper were woken and moved into the living room. TJ was tied up and left lying on the bedroom floor. His brain was in a fog, and nothing made sense to him. Athena was tied up with light rope and left on the bed as the two men started to search every inch of the belongings and backpacks in the room. Taking time to search every item they kept asking where the money was. TJ didn’t feel any fear or anger and started slowly to understand that Athena and himself had somehow been drugged. He felt removed from the situation as if in a dream. The smaller man was rubbing his hands on Athena’s naked body. He placed his fingers on her breasts and pelvic area while he looked in her eyes for signs of fear or excitement. Athena gave back an ice-cold stare directly into the man’s eyes. She would not play at being a helpless victim. Without getting a wanted response he stopped what he was doing. As they were moving the possessions into bags by the heavy steel backed side door, they were wondering how to unlock the heavy door to the outside.
TJ’s father, Joe, was also acting in a very sluggish manner as they finished searching the house. They took his wallet and watch, his TV, and other expensive items. Now the four-armed robbers wanted out of the house. The one yelled at the housekeeper to open the door and slapped her in the head until she produced the key for the metal door. Having said almost nothing while ransacking the house, the tallest robber walked through the door that she held open and called her a Zorra … which meant slut in Spanish.
Each bandit walked out of the house with both arms full of stolen objects. Down the road under a tree and hidden from sight, was the waiting escape car and another person inside was sitting in the driver’s seat. They loaded in silence, started the car, and drove off in the direction of town. Everyone felt relief as the car left. Tom and Athena were relieved to be untied but in shock as it all seemed so unreal, like a strange nightmare. No one could go back to sleep and soon after, at the first light of day, they found the two dogs dead on the porch with white foam and dried spit around their jaws and small piles of excrement pushed out of their bowls as they were in the process of dying several hours before. They had eaten poisoned meat that had been thrown over the fence the night before.
Joe and TJ went outside and lit cigarettes to calm their nerves. They looked at the dogs’ bodies and covered them with sheets. They talked things over to put together all the questions as to what had happened in the different rooms. The two women looked around the house at the mess left behind and called the local police station. Within 20 minutes a car arrived with two officers to start the investigation. More officers came as the morning light started to shine through the bedroom window which had the metal bars bent and broken by using a hydraulic jack. The metal bars had been slowly pushed out of the cement frame with the motion of the jack. The noise had escaped detection the night before as TJ and Athena could not figure out what the sounds were that they had heard. Athena had thought that maybe it was just the sound of the metal roof twisting while it cooled in the night from the hot sun that day before.
The police looked the house over and asked for the details from each of the three Gringos and the Panamanian housekeeper, who were exhausted from lack of sleep and an extreme adrenaline rush. The housekeeper’s teenage daughter had been away at her father’s place that night and for some reason, none of her items including her laptop were taken. The Police report was filed but nothing was ever recovered, or anyone made suspect in a country which had left many foreigners defenseless against robberies and home invasions. Corruption of the Police was common, and rumor had it the Police were part of the problem with the wealthy Gringos.
Three days later TJ and Athena left Panama for the last time. Nothing was ever heard from the local investigation about suspects or finding stolen property. It left a bad taste in their mouths and took the shine off any ideas of living in areas close to TJ’s father. The housekeeper seemed to be happy that TJ and Athena were leaving and just before they headed out the front door, the housekeeper looked Athena straight into her eyes and said, “I guess this means that you will never be coming back again”. In that instant, Athena knew that the housekeeper was in on the robbery and likely had organized part of it so that she could keep control over TJ’s father.
While on the bus headed to Costa Rica, TJ and Athena once again looked back on those months of their lives and the five countries explored on foot and by bus that had changed their lives immensely. TJ was a much more confident man with a wider view of the world and the people in it. His travels and experiences were an ancient form of unformal education in the world and its inhabitants. He now knew the real value in living was in the interactions and relations built with other humans. Athena who had throughout her life been immensely trusting in everyone and everything, no longer was.
TJ had wanted to tell Joe about his adventures in South America and knew that Joe wanted to have the freedom to travel when he was a younger man. TJ sensed the jealousy in his father, but his life took a different path with his wife and family. One day Joe told TJ, “If I could do it all over again, I would change a lot of things in my life. I would live a life of adventure by sailing around the world as a merchant marine going from whore house to whore house on my shore leave.” He grinned at the thought of so many different women in different ports of call. Joe had explained, “Your mother was a good woman but too boring as the years went by for my liking. Got to have excitement to keep the blood pumping when you get old like me.
THE ARGUMENT WAS AGAIN HEATING UP IN PANAMA
TJ and Athena had left, but Joe was yelling and spilling his drink over the tabletop while the housekeeper was demanding that the house title should include her name as she felt it was now her home as well as his.
This had been the cause of many previous arguments but lately the tone was becoming much more demanding, and threats of all kinds were made if he did not agree to her demands. She wanted to be rewarded for the time spent with this bitter old man who drank too much and was taking up too much time, which she thought she should be enjoying at expensive resorts while looking for her next victim-lover.
Originally, she had expected that Joe would only live a few more years as he was about 35 years older than her. Panic was setting in as the months were turning into years and five years had already passed.
Time to put a rush on things, she said to herself out loud. It was time to put the plan into action to keep things moving along, if she was going to enjoy the time left in her own life. She took a bottle out of the garden shed in the backyard and looked at the label, then poured a little out of the bottle into the coffee container. While talking out loud to herself in a whisper quiet voice she said “This should fix the problem! Does this miserable old man think I’m the house cleaner for the rest of his life?” She put the large tin can filled with the mixture of poison and coffee in the kitchen cupboard behind other cans and packages. It wouldn’t take much to make a person very ill with the contents added to each morning’s coffee or some food item.