Florida Key

by Neil Watson

  As soon as he’d thanked the caller and said goodbye, Oliver slumped into Siobhan’s soft sofa, pulling her with him so he could give her a kiss square on the lips. “I can hardly believe it!” he said.

  “What is it?” Siobhan cried out, impatiently.

  Oliver tried to explain, but he was too excited to formulate his words in the right order, so he gave up and simply asked: “Can you come with me to meet Mrs. Copeland later?”

  “I can if you want me to, but who exactly is Mrs. Copeland?” Siobhan asked, quite reasonably.

  “She’s only the forensic scientist who worked on the Bike Radio case, that’s all!” answered Oliver. “She’s on her way to the lab to check out some things now, and wants to meet us after.”

  “In that case, I definitely can come. I’m not going to miss this meeting for anything!” Siobhan said as she went upstairs to get ready. Oliver following closely behind, worried that his jeans and t-shirt, the only clothes he had with him, weren’t totally appropriate for a meeting with such a professional person.

  CHAPTER 33

  (SUNDAY, 21ST JANUARY, 2018)

  Radio Interview

  G uessing that Oliver, being British, preferred tea over coffee, Katie Copeland had some Lipton’s English Breakfast sachets all ready in the cups for when her guests arrived. Siobhan and Oliver were invited to take the bench seat at the large pine table in the centre of the kitchen. After the initial introductions and pleasantries had been conducted and hot water had been poured in the cups, Katie got down to business.

  “It was my husband who initially brought your story to my attention,” she began, unfolding the newspaper cutting and placing it on the table by way of an explanation. “I’ve been semi-retired for some years now, but I remember this one well,” she continued, jabbing her pointed finger at the headline. “At the time I always felt that something didn’t quite add up, and I still think that today.”

  Oliver was particularly pleased to hear this, knowing that his own feelings were probably based more on wishful thinking than facts, given his empathy towards Yushi, a fellow cyclist. And now here was someone, with much more of a scientific brain than his creative one, thinking along the same lines.

  Katie continued. “I’ve just come from doing a little research. You see, I still do some consultative work for the Police from time to time, and they allow me access to their laboratory and storage facilities. It’s a huge place, with racks filled to the ceiling with every piece of evidence from all the crimes dating back to the sixties, and everything is recorded and logged, quite easy to find so long as you know where to look for it. And . . .”

  As interesting as Katie’s monologue undoubtedly was, Oliver wanted her to steer away from how the archive system worked, but what was in it, relevant to the Bike Radio Murder case. Katie sensed his impatience, and came back on track. “Anyway, DNA testing wasn’t around back in 1981, but now that it is, I’ve been able to check out one or two anomalies I was unsure about during my initial investigations.”

  Good, thought Oliver. This was what he wanted, and he leaned across the table to show Katie that she had his full attention. She went on. “The semen stains found on the waterbed and Kleenex were from two different males, of that I’m now certain. The fingerprints found on the plastic remnants of the radio weren’t only Yakamoto’s and Beach’s. There were hair samples found where their DNA didn’t match that of Yakamoto. And not only all that, there was a partial footprint of blood from a shoe sole near the front door of the house, and I don’t think it came from the same shoe that Yakamoto had been wearing. So, in my opinion, there had definitely been someone else present in the house, and I think probably at the same time. I’d say that at the least, not all this circumstantial evidence had been taken into account at Yakamoto’s trial. And at worst, I’d say that the truth had been obstructed from coming out.”

  This was music to Oliver’s and Siobhan’s ears, as Katie continued: “I’m afraid I can’t prove the presence of another person at the same time. But if, in fact, there had been someone else there, it could mean that Yakamoto’s constant claim of innocence to the day he died was true. Perhaps they did get the wrong man after all. I’m sorry, but perhaps I’ve been more of a hindrance than a help by even suggesting this.”

  “No! Not at all!” Oliver exclaimed, raising his arms in the air. He assured Katie of their extreme gratitude for her help, and that her expert opinion was indeed very welcome.

  Katie had prepared a small folder of notes relating to her findings and handed it to Oliver. “I’m afraid this is about as much as I can offer you for the time being,” she said, apologising that she couldn’t do more, before continuing. “But if I find anything else you can be sure I’ll let you know.”

  “I wish you the best of luck with your investigations,” Katie said while standing up to show them to the door. “I’d like to see you find out what really happened to Sandy Beach just as much as I’m sure you would. You know you’re gaining quite a reputation around here, don’t you? But be prudent. If in fact Yakamoto didn’t do it, that means someone else did—and whoever that person is, they’re not going to be very happy to discover you on their trail. After all, they think they’ve escaped justice all this time. So just take care, okay?”

  With Oliver now in a rather reflective mood, as he drove away with Siobhan at his side, he thought about when he’d first bought his key from the Florida flea market. He couldn’t have possibly imagined in his wildest dreams that it would have led him on this journey, and up until now, this whole affair had just been one great adventure. It had so far been nothing but fun, and such an incredible experience. But Katie’s words of warning were right, of course. If Yushi hadn’t done it, someone else out there had. It suddenly dawned on Oliver that if the wrong person had been convicted, the real killer might have been watching when he’d made his ‘Young Sherlock’ TV appearance. For a second, Oliver felt frightened, and for a very brief moment of weakness he considered dropping everything and heading back to the sanctuary of Wivenhoe where he felt safe and secure. Katie’s words had been a wake-up call.

  But he soon told himself not to be such a cowardly fool. “I’ve come here to do a job, and I’m going to follow it through!” he spoke out loud to a considerably startled Siobhan.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” she asked.

  “Sorry, Siobhan. I was just day dreaming,” he explained. She was still none the wiser.

  A short while later, just as Oliver was dropping Siobhan off at her place, his phone rang. It was a local radio station calling to ask if he could do a short pre-recorded interview that would be put out just after the main news at the top of the hour later that afternoon. “Why not?” agreed Oliver, turning to Siobhan and explaining what was happening. Very impressed, she stayed in the car to listen to the proceedings.

  “Okay then,” said the programme’s producer. “Please stay on the line, Oliver, while I put you through to David Roberts, the show’s presenter.” Oliver waited a few seconds, listening to a series of clicks and pops while preparations were being made in the station’s studio. Then he heard the same voice come through again. “Putting you on in three,” said the producer. “Three, two, one. Okay Oliver. You’re now through to David.”

  “Good afternoon, Young Sherlock . . .” Roberts began, in an exaggeratedly jovial tone. Siobhan sat silently in the car for the duration of the interview, dismayed at how the DJ was somewhat making fun of her man.

  “I didn’t care much for his tone,” she said after it was all over. “Did you?”

  Oliver shrugged, admittedly feeling he’d been stung. “Well, I suppose any media coverage is worth having,” he answered thoughtfully.

  “I guess you’re right,” agreed Siobhan as she leant across to give him a parting kiss, about to go indoors and pack a bag for her evening’s two-hour journey up to Stateville.

  Just before saying one final goodbye to Siobhan, even though Oliver knew he should find The Old Parlor in Paris u
sing his satnav without too much difficulty, he still asked her for the directions. Her warm voice somehow helped to calm his nerves. He then wished her good luck for the following day. “Try to find out as much as you can about Yushi, and give me a call as soon as you can. I think your visit will be limited to an hour, so you should be finished before I meet Mystery Caller at noon.”

  Oliver was jealous that Siobhan would be the one going and not himself, but he also knew how important it was for him to meet the man who claimed to have information about the ‘real’ killer. It could of course be a total red herring, thought Oliver, but he had an inkling that this could be a lead worth checking out. But recalling the brash tone of the man’s voice, Oliver felt more apprehensive than he knew why.

  When he’d taken the phone call, Oliver had possessed a certain bravado, possibly aided by the cocktail of seeing Siobhan’s rather exquisite body swaying in front of him, as well as having consumed quite a few flutes of her aunt’s fine sparkling wine. Monday had seemed such a long way off then, but now the day was nearly upon him, and he wished someone could accompany him.

  Perhaps when he got back home to the Dickinson’s later, he could invite Sam to join him. Or even better, Sam and her father as well. Chris Dickinson was a big man, tall and strong, and nobody in their right mind would mess with him.

  CHAPTER 34

  (SUNDAY, 21ST JANUARY, 2018)

  Déjà Vu

  I t hadn’t been too difficult for Marc Ozborn to get his old Dodge truck to fire up again, despite it having lain dormant for a good while. He knew a thing or two about the workings of the internal combustion engine, and a thorough clean of the points and spark plugs, plus an overnight charge of the battery did the trick. With the hood still hooked up, he pumped the gas pedal a few times while turning the ignition key, listening intently to all sounds coming from the engine bay.

  At first the motor only cranked over, then he heard the glimmer of life come back into his old pride and joy. A few more turns, and then came a triumphant roar as the V8 spluttered into glorious motion, the growl sounding exactly as Ozborn remembered it, with exhaust fumes spewing in a cloud of thick smoke from the newly fitted tailpipe. The muffler could wait, for now. The old one was just louder than it ought to be but shouldn’t affect the truck’s general performance too much, he thought.

  It was getting late in the afternoon and the low sunlight was making Ozborn quite drowsy. Of course, that could also have been from the three or four Buds he’d been drinking while peering into the engine bay and making various adjustments to this and that component. Despite the tiredness, he was keen to give the vehicle what it really needed—a good run to blow out all the old cobwebs. So he lowered the hood with a loud clunk, climbed in the cab and revved up a few more times before slowly driving out of the trailer park and onto the open road. Without considering where to go, he automatically turned left towards Paris, and hit the gas.

  Despite the inevitable few initial misfires, Ozborn felt over the moon to discover how well the truck was now running. It still looked as it did back when he’d last driven it—rusty, scratched and dented—but he cared little for its appearance. And although it had for sure seen better days, he was getting far more driving pleasure from it than his new Ford. They just don’t make ‘em like they used to, he thought with a smile on his face, proud that he’d got his ‘old favourite’ running again.

  Once out of his home town of Marshall, the ten-mile straight section of road to Paris would be perfect for opening up the throttle and cruising along at nearly a hundred miles per hour, maybe over the ton if the wind was behind him. It was Sunday afternoon and, with not much going on, Ozborn knew that many of the traffic cops would be taking a breather back in their precinct. So, after filling up with a tankful of new, clean gas at the local Mobil station, Ozborn put his foot down, feeling confident that he wouldn’t get caught on the trip there and back.

  It seemed that before he blinked, he was already approaching the outskirts of Paris. Slowing down and enjoying listening to the low rumbling sound coming from under the hood, he just cruised around the town that he hadn’t had cause to visit for some time. He turned on the radio, and caught the tail end of some Jay-Z rap song—if ‘song’ was the right word to describe the crap, in Ozborn’s opinion, before presenter David Roberts went on to introduce a Sam Smith track, fresh from the singer’s latest album. “Far more like it,” Ozborn muttered under his breath. Paying more attention to the music on the radio than to where he was going, an accidental touching of the kerb startled him back to reality. He looked around and realised he was near the street in which Sandy Beach’s old house had been.

  Ozborn had not been back there since he’d awoken naked on the rear patio decking early that April morning in 1981. The scene that he’d played over and over in his mind hundreds of times suddenly came back with a vengeance. The memory of how he accidentally trod in some of the congealed blood surrounding that woman’s lifeless body always made him feel nauseous and sick—and today was no exception. He vividly remembered how his shoe had slid off the gas pedal a number of times when he’d driven away and how he’d scrubbed the blood away from the metal, and burned his boots in an old oil-drum incinerator as soon as he’d got home.

  For more than three decades, those horrible flashbacks had haunted him, despite being so blurred now that he was unable to distinguish between reality and fiction. But now, everything was finally becoming as clear as the bright sun shining in the sky today—and he didn’t like it one bit. Perhaps, Ozborn thought, by revisiting the property, he might be able to banish some of those awful memories to oblivion. “That damned Sherlock boy!” he muttered again. “Why’d he have to drag this whole thing up all over again?”

  Pulling up outside the house, Ozborn gazed at the rotten timbers of the bungalow, then at the loose roof tiles and unfastened guttering. The whole place looked a very sorry state of affairs indeed. He sat there for five, maybe even ten minutes, with the engine idling and the worn old muffler rumbling. For a moment, he contemplated stepping out the truck and wandering around. But what would be the point? As a shudder ran through him, he decided not to hang around any longer. Now in an uncharacteristic contemplative mood, he lit a cigarette and adjusted his hat, letting his pickup truck crawl along slowly towards the end of the road, with its low-revving engine producing a deep hum that vibrated all around.

  ***

  Hannah Toporofski had just sat down in her living room with a tray on her lap containing a bowl of Polish sausage and sauerkraut. She’d been looking forward to eating it ever since that morning when she’d been to the new East European deli that had opened recently in the town’s Main Street. She pressed the button on the TV remote that was lying on the sofa next to her, and got ready to watch whatever was on, hoping that there might be a repeat of the interview she’d appeared in with that nice young man from England.

  Alas, there wasn’t, for that was now yesterday’s news. Instead, she settled on watching an episode of Frasier. Shifting her plump bottom to get as comfortable as she could, she became more and more irritated with the low rumbling sound from outside that was spoiling her eating and viewing experience.

  For what seemed ages, this irritation continued. After a few mouthfuls of her food, exasperated, Hannah placed the tray at her side and stood up to find out wherever the noise was coming from. She looked out of the window, just at the moment when an old rusty truck was crawling slowly away from the house next door towards the front of hers. An uncanny feeling of déjà-vu swept over her, and she physically shuddered. Convinced that this whole scenario had already been played out once before in her life, Hannah shook her head in disbelief. As she watched this strangely familiar vehicle edge very slowly past her window, she even thought the driver, whose outlined silhouette she could just about make out, was adopting the same position as before—with his left arm half resting out of his open window and cigarette hanging from his mouth.

  For Hannah, it was quite the most bizarr
e experience. She had never been able to recognise any car on the road—in her opinion they all looked the same—and yet she was certain she’d seen this particular one previously, as well as the man behind the wheel. Maybe it was just the familiar colour of the vehicle that triggered this reaction, she couldn’t be certain. She knew it was illogical to do so, but nonetheless she grabbed her digital camera and took a few snaps of the vehicle before she watched it slowly turn right towards Marshall at the end of the road.

  With an audible sigh, as well as a few out-loud tut-tuts, she then returned to the comfort of her sofa, determined to finish her now cold meal. It had cost, after all, $5.99, and money didn’t grow on trees. So she carried on eating it regardless, all the while contemplating what a silly old fool she was being.

  But the more she thought about it, the more she felt compelled to act, in some way or another. After much deliberation, she decided she needed to tell someone about the inexplicable sighting. Instinctively she knew it was somehow connected to her neighbour’s murder, although she had no idea how. She’d be considered crazy, she knew that, but at least her conscience would be clear as long as she did something, no matter how much folks might laugh at her.

  After clearing away her tray and rinsing the bowl under the kitchen tap, Hannah decided to phone the young man who she’d been interviewed with by the television reporter. Picking up the card carefully placed by the phone in the hallway, she pressed the numbers. When her call went straight through to a ‘please leave a message’ request, Hannah nervously became tongue-tied and hung up. She so much hated answering machines. So, next she searched around for the other card that she’d been given. “Now, what was that pretty girl’s name?” she asked herself. “Where did I put it? Ah, yes, here it is. Siobhan O’Mahoney.” This time, her call was answered.