by Neil Watson
FLORIDA KEY
Neil Watson
Published 2018 by Hornet Books
Text © Neil Watson 2018
This work © Hornet Books Ltd
All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, recording, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Florida Key is a work of fiction that refers to some real people who have given permission for their names to be included in the text as characters involved in the entirely fictitious storylines. Any resemblance to current events or locations or to persons living (apart from those listed and thanked in this book) is entirely coincidental.
The right of Neil Watson to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Proof reader: Suzannah Young
Hornet Books
www.hornetbooks.com
[email protected]
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks go to . . .
My wife, Jane for putting up with me as I ventured into another world on a regular and frequent basis while engrossed at the iMac.
My daughter, Laura for the illustration of Oliver Markland.
The Black Buoy for providing warmth and comfort like no other pub, and for supporting this project.
Jay Stapley (www.jaystapley.co.uk) for composing ‘Damn My Luck’, the theme to Florida Key and for performing it at the book launch.
Janet Roberts for clearing the kitchen table to make way for my weekly ‘meeting’ with publisher and editor David.
Chase Kimball for enthusiastically reading through my initial manuscript and pointing out the many mistakes I’d made.
Adrian Mould for supplying me with one or two nice fruity Corbières in Montolieu while I chewed my proverbial pencil during the writing of Florida Key.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
An acknowledgements list would not be complete without all the characters who lent their names and were happy to pay for the privilege of appearing in Florida Key, enabling me to complete the book.
Cast of Characters, in order of appearance:
Mark Osborne, as bad man Marc Ozborn
Sarah Beech, as murder victim Sandy Beach
Phil Booth, as the Cincinnati traffic cop, with wife Lou and dog Bertie
Annie Morris, aka Mrs. Baltzwinik-Toporofski, as the murder victim’s neighbour
John Moores, as the Police Chief heading the hunt for Yushi Yakamoto
Graham Staples, as the Police Sergeant working with Moores
Katie Barnes-Copeland, as the forensic scientist
Mark Emanuele, as prison cellmate M.J. Emanuele, aka The Assassin
Chris Dickinson and Kerry Greenland, as Oliver’s hosts in Indianapolis
Audrey Crosby and Bob Needham, as the helpful couple at the Black Buoy pub
Ursula O’Mahoney, as the Editor of the Terre Haute Daily Times
Melody Goddard Rhode with her dog, Blaise-Pascal, as Coldplay’s aunt
Lorraine Mills, as the Police Patrolwoman
Theresa Ashley, as the British expat Police Officer William Wheatley, as the Police Officer working with Theresa Ashley
Zac Brightmore, as the Post Room boy at the newspaper offices
Miss Alberta Louise Baudet, as the owner of the boat Miss Baudet
INTRODUCTION
By the Author
This could have been that difficult ‘second album’ period for me. Following on from Muddy Water, I daren’t have dreamed that I’d be lucky enough to have a second crack of the whip. But I did. I was invited to write a second novel, and this is it– Florida Key.
The other day, I was searching through old papers and found something that I’d drawn up at the start of the creative process. It was a mind map, I think they call it, with lines and squiggles, crossings-out and arrows, underlinings and circles. This finished book bears little resemblance to the plans I formulated at the beginning. I admit, there was hardly a plan at all, just the premise for a tale based on a personal experience I had while on holiday in Florida.
Any thoughts about writing a book during that American vacation were embryonic. It was more about swimming in the ocean, or having a beer at Skinny’s, where they serve their renowned ‘Number 1’ burgers. I visited a flea market and found an old key for sale. As I held it in my hand, contemplating its purchase for $17, I immediately knew that this object would become the subject of my next book.
I, like Florida Key’s central character, Oliver Markland, pondered the question of where the key originated from. When the seller informed me it might be from a prison, my imagination went into overdrive. Where was the prison? Who was held captive there? Why? When? What happened to him?
For me, there was only one way to find out. I’d let my imagination run wild and let it feed me the answers. Then, another thought occurred to me–what if the inmate had been executed? And what if he hadn’t committed the crime?
All these questions bombarded me while I was standing in the hot Florida sunshine.
To help me write the book, I went on an imaginary journey. The character became me–or rather I became the character. Apart from those initial mind maps, I didn’t know where Oliver Markland would take me.
Each day I began writing, I couldn’t wait to find out what would happen to central characters Yushi Yakamoto and Oliver Markland.
So, although Florida Key is a work of fiction, to me it’s as real as if it all actually happened.
Poor Yushi. Lucky Oliver. Fortunate me.
How it all Began
(MONDAY, 13TH APRIL, 1981)
PARIS, ILLINOIS, MIDWEST USA
T he crash of plastic coming down on a human head was like nothing else he’d ever heard. She shouldn’t have ridiculed him. That was his justification for what he had done to her.
What he hadn’t expected was for the red and black plastic object to disintegrate into so many pieces. Obviously, he hadn’t known his own strength. Obviously, at that moment when she fell, he wished he could have turned the clock back and decided not to return to her house. He should have simply moved on, but now that was easy to think. Everything is easy in hindsight.
Still with a head full of confused rage, as he moved his right foot back into a position where he could make a good strike, he saw her eye open slightly—only one, before it flickered and convulsed—and then when her eyeball turned upwards, he took a swipe. He couldn’t control himself, such were his repressed feelings, as if possessed by the devil himself. And now she was dead. Of that there was no doubt in his mind.
For a few seconds, he stood motionless, wondering what her final thoughts had been as she took her last breaths.
(FIFTEEN YEARS LATER)
JOLIET CORRECTIONAL CENTER, ILLINOIS, USA
Only 21 when he was taken to Joliet, Yushi Yakamoto was as American as they come. For him, life was all about living the American Dream, about Taco Bell fast-food, Mountain Dew soda drinks and Hershey’s chocolate bars. He had toyed with the idea of changing his name to make it more American-sounding, and when he was twenty he even got as far as going to a lawyer who had promised to handle everything on his behalf for ‘only’ $199.
It was funny how, in these circumstances, Yushi now thought about such details. He recalled that it hadn’t been the amount of money that had made him change his mind, even though the cost, in his opinion, was a rip-off just for a few forms to be filed. No, in the end, it was out of respect for his parents, who had come to live and work tirelessly in what had once been a wonderful nation in the 1950s. They had been proud of their Japanese heritage, and proud to
be making a good life for themselves in a country that, only a few years previously, had had their national differences with Japan, to put it mildly. Yes, he was glad to have honoured his parents’ good name, and decided at the last minute to cancel his application to become ‘Mr. Stephen Josh Mote’. Instead, he settled for only paying his lawyer’s $25 initial consultation fee, continuing with his original birth name.
Now, aged 36, Yushi was led out of his cell, on the fourth floor of Block A. As he sat, strapped in position, helplessly watching the lethal concoction of drugs being injected into his arm, he reflected on how his decision to remain in the United States as Yushi Yakamoto had been a big mistake.
PREVIOUSLY, SOMEWHERE IN MIDWEST AMERICA
Mark Osborne had been born in 1943, the fourth son of a soldier of the United States military. He never knew his father, who was stationed in Tunisia in 1942 to do his bit for Uncle Sam, and never returned. As Osborne grew up, constantly being bullied by his older brothers, and outraged that his pa could have so selfishly left him, the chip on his shoulder became a growth that refused to diminish. With his father no longer around, his mom began drinking to quell the pain of her loss, but that soon became the least of the family’s worries.
Uncles and aunts were ever-present in the tenement block where they lived, on the rough side of town, for the first year or so—which saw his mother struggling to raise the family on very little money. For a while, things were just about tolerable, although Mark constantly had to hit back at his brothers when his mom wasn’t looking. By the time he was five, the visits from uncles and aunts had all but dried up, and even by that young age he had learnt the meaning of being poor.
He loved his mom, really he did, but he hated it when she left him at home with his brothers, and then heard her returning home late at night, each time accompanied by the sound of a different man’s voice. When he’d ask his mom the following morning who the stranger was, she just shrugged and said that it was what she had to do to put food in his belly. All his fault, then, he thought.
He remembered rebelling, in his own small way, as soon as he could, when being taught to read and write. The infant pupils would take it in turns to chalk their names on the blackboard in class for the teacher, and Mark would deliberately spell his first name with a C instead of K, and ‘Osborne’ was also changed to suit his whim. Eventually, the teachers gave up trying to correct the boy, and soon ‘Marc Ozborn’ gained his first victory over authority. In that small way, it helped to make him feel less helpless, but unfortunately the anger was ever-present, and still growing.
On the occasions when he wasn’t playing truant and Ozborn actually attended his junior school, he paid hardly any attention in class—with the notable exception of anything related to the Second World War, and particularly what led the United States to become involved. He lapped up historical facts to do with the events at Pearl Harbor, and how, prior to that fateful day in December 1941, Churchill repeatedly attempted to persuade Roosevelt to join the Allies in their fight against Germany. “Damned Japs”, he thought, damned Krauts, and damned Brits, too. If it weren’t for Churchill, his pa might still be alive today.
Ozborn was proud that he’d decided to misspell his name—‘Osborne’ looked too British, whereas ‘Ozborn’ appeared more individual, in his mind, and more American. Either way, no figures of officialdom ever checked, and the name stuck.
Over the years, his anger grew at how his pa had left him—for that was the way Ozborn saw it. His anger grew at how his brothers tormented him—to the point where he lashed out to protect himself against their spitefulness. At least he was learning to fight, with a well-placed punch here, and a kick there. His anger grew at how his mom behaved with the drink bottle. He became rude to her men friends when they tried making small talk with him, sometimes kicking them in the shins if he thought he could get away with it without his mom noticing. Usually, he succeeded with the quieter ones who chose not to react and cause a scene, especially when they hadn’t yet got what they’d come for. They were the ones he hated the most. ‘Spineless shits’, he called them, sometimes to their face when Mom was out of earshot.
By the time he was 12, he hated the world, and everyone around him. His own life sucked, but in his own eyes it wasn’t his fault, was it? By 13, he’d discovered where his mom stashed her bottles of vodka and whisky, and it didn’t take long before he learned how their contents eased his own pain, just like they did for her. By the time he’d reached 14, he was off, taking his brother’s car and driving it into a ditch a few miles out of town. No matter, he’d take another from the parking lot at the mall—it was surprising how many there were to choose from with their doors unlocked and keys left in the ignition. It served the owners right for being such lazy bastards, he thought, and gleefully watched in the rear-view mirror as they’d come out, scratching their heads as they looked at the now vacant space between the lines on the ground.
Inevitably, time was served at the Youth Detention Center, and that was where Marc Ozborn acquired a new interest, along with the associated skills needed to obtain, and use them—narcotics.
(WEDNESDAY, 8TH APRIL, 1981)
PARIS, ILLINOIS
Every morning when she arrived at the practice, dental assistant Sandy Beach had already slipped on her appropriate, flat, black shoes, and she would already be wearing her crisp, white tunic with its thin, navy-blue lines around the collar and pockets. Dressed smartly prior to making the short journey to work from her home, she made sure she had every button fastened all the way to the top, so as never to reveal any of her cleavage. Despite this, when she was leaning over to place various pieces of oral apparatus into the mouths of the clients, Mr. Edgar, the dentist, couldn’t fail to fantasise about the fine figure so obviously lurking beneath his assistant’s formal attire.
Although Sandy was acutely aware of the sensuality that she exuded, she would never intentionally let it be shown—at least as far as being at the dentist’s was concerned. Although she’d always quite fancied Mr. Edgar, she’d never imagined him to be rough enough to satisfy her secret desires.
But at The Old Parlor Tavern on Main Street, Paris, it was, however, a completely different matter. Out came Sandy’s hairpins, and down came her long, auburn locks. Her flat shoes were substituted for high-heeled cowboy boots, and her smart and proper uniform swapped for a low-cut halter-neck top, the black clingy fabric of which left nothing to the imagination, especially when she provocatively chose to wear no bra, as was the case on this particular evening.
Just like when she was ‘entertaining’ her guests at home on her waterbed, she was in control, and she liked that feeling. When she strutted, deliberately slowly, to the bar, practically all the men, as well as a good number of the women, stopped their conversations mid-flow to ogle her self-assured stride as she walked towards them. Eyes glued to her tight jeans that could have been sprayed on, they continued gazing as she confidently strode past.
Once at the bar, Sandy needn’t wait a moment before being offered any number of drinks, but she was choosey before accepting the first. Preferring instead to initially be served directly by the bartender, she coolly brushed aside all advances with a warm, gracious smile, and began her evening with a Bud Light, eyeing up whoever she’d most fancy taking home with her that night to satisfy her sexual energy.
A string of expletives spouted from the mouth of 38-year old Marc Ozborn, as he battled to contain his anger at the poor young guy who’d inadvertently spilled a couple of drops of beer on his arm. The fact that it was Ozborn himself who’d caused the spillage didn’t matter, as far as he was concerned.
“Damned retard. Be more careful next time,” Ozborn spat as he made his way through the crowded space.
“But . . .” the young guy began to defend himself, to no avail. It was too late.
The man with no manners had all but disappeared into the throng of people on his way through to the bar. The young guy considered following in order to extract an apolo
gy, but decided against it, having read the drunk expression of anger on the perpetrator’s face. “People like that are best left alone,” he thought, and wisely decided to let the matter go.
Sandy had been sitting sideways-on with her back in perfect posture at one of the tall stools, sipping the beer occasionally as she held the bottle elegantly, caressing its neck suggestively with her fingers. She enjoyed observing the crowd, and although she’d already been offered at least four drinks from eager suitors, so far she’d been disappointed with the type of man that had approached her.
She liked variety. Sometimes she liked to be treated gently, but tonight she was in a different mood. This time she wanted someone experienced and rugged, someone to pull at her hair and slap her— ‘a bit of rough’, as she called it. As if the gods had read her mind, a tall, unshaven but attractive man came pushing his way through the crowd towards the bar. He looked angry and full of testosterone, as he turned behind him shouting some expletives while brushing his arm dry.
She decided there and then that he would be the one going home with her that night, no matter how out of his head on booze, and maybe more, he clearly was.
PART ONE
YUSHI’S BIKE RIDE
CHAPTER 1
ALLENTOWN,
PENNSYLVANIA, USA
(SUNDAY, 22ND FEBRUARY, 1981)