“No, not at all,” she said.
The answer didn’t ring true. Orlando wasn’t sure she was lying, but chances were, if she had been hooked to a lie detector, it would have beeped loudly. Orlando shook his head. A divorce can bring out the worst in people, even best friends. She walked out the door and slammed it when she left.
###
Leaning back in his chair, he heard Emily knock on his door. “Come in.”
She walked in with a sardonic smile. “Didn’t sound like that went too well.”
To her surprise, he chuckled. She hadn’t heard much laughter from Orlando.
“No. She basically accused me of being a liar, but talking about honesty, I don’t think she was totally truthful with me.” Then he smiled and chuckled again.
“Well, at least the case is making you smile and laugh a little.” She paused. “Boss, I have no idea how you are feeling right now, but I just want you to remind you that I am here for you.”
Orlando was lost in her eyes, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to look away. Emily just made everything seem better.
“Let’s just say I’m not fine yet, Emily. Not a hundred percent, sunshine and roses guy, who embraces life with great enthusiasm, but I think I’m making a few steps toward there.
“Say that if you like, but just know if you need anything, I will be at my desk.” He walked over to her and touched her chin. “I need to head for Linwood Springs, and I’ll probably spend the day there, if not two days. This case is becoming very important to me. But after I get back, would you like to dinner at the Ocean Grill?”
The Ocean Grill was a fine restaurant and a tourist landmark in the city.
She blinked her eyes in surprise. “Yes, I would. And afterwards, how about a walk on the beach.”
He smiled. “That’s sounds great.”
Orlando chuckled again. Emily gave a high-beam smile. She had rarely seen him smile in the past. Now, he not only smiled, he seemed more relaxed with himself, more confident.
He picked up her hand and kissed it, an action that shocked him after his lips left her hand.
His heart pounded as he watched her leave the office. Both good and bad emotions were flooding his soul; which he concluded was better than only bad emotions flooding his soul.
If he wasn’t planning to drive, Orlando thought he might go into the downtown bar, The Blue Reef, and have a drink. Life was coming at him as fast as a Daytona 500 race car. A few days ago, he was thinking of closing up shop, and frankly, even in the bright Florida sun, a grey darkness always seemed to be around him. He sighed and said a mental thanks, that it must have been an environmental depression, not a medical one. He had one friend who had fought depression for years. The pills and therapy gave him some relief, but not total. Orlando thought it must be terrible to live with darkness around you, to be friends with the shadows. But, as his friend could tell him, the shadows have no friends. Everything flesh and blood is their enemy. Now, the shadows were retreating. They had lost power and were withering. They had not yet abandoned the field, but they had been forced back; a victory Orlando knew he had very little to do with. Emily deserved his thanks, as did a long dead mayor from a little town most people had never heard of. The late mayor had done his best to better his community, and 25 years after his death, he had helped a private detective fight and win against the shadows.
“He deserves to see his murderer brought to justice,” Orlando said. He was about to speak other words, but they died in his throat. His stomach went queasy. For a moment, coldness griped his stomach. He clenched his fist and resurrected the words. It was a battle. For a moment, it seemed they did not want to come out and resisted his push. But he took a deep breath, and his tongue pushed them out of his lips. “And Emily, the wonderful woman that she is, deserves a fun night at the Ocean Grill.”
He was on another case, and was conflicted about his feelings towards the divorce of two of his closest friends. He wouldn’t be working on their case if he traveled to Linwood Springs, but they had been dealing with that issue for months. One more day wouldn’t hurt them. Or two more days, if he needed more time on the Richardson case. He supposed there was no hurry. The case was twenty-five years old. Chances are, no new clues would be discovered during the afternoon. But he had the urge to get to Linwood Springs today. Justice had been delayed too long. Too long, indeed.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ninety minutes later, a blue and white sign welcomed him to Linwood Springs, and promised fine accommodations, excellent restaurants, beach walks, sailing and scuba diving, and generally, a really good time. Orlando smiled. One of his friends, Adam Winslow, a 77-year-old boater, had spent most of his life in Linwood Springs. Winslow lived in the city when it was a small town. It had changed dramatically in his lifetime, and Winslow wasn’t fond of most of the changes. “Fifty years ago, the chamber of commerce bought television commercials up North. It had a smiling chamber man telling folks, ‘Come on down!’ Now, they should run commercials telling folks North and South of us to ‘Stay where you are!’ Orlando laughed when he thought of the line, but Winslow was not the only Floridian who groaned and complained at the rapidly changing state. Tens of thousands of Floridians had wanted the state to stay basically rural. They didn’t like big cities, and ever increasing miles of asphalt and concrete covering the greenery. To them, all the new people had changed the state for the worse. Orlando knew how they felt. About a mile from where he grew up, there was a swimming hole. He had spent most of his youth there, watching girls and, occasionally, actually swimming. Ten years before, he had been driving by the location, and saw it had been turned into a subdivision. He felt a pang of regret. Where there had been memories of laughter and merriment, there was only wood, and concrete, and porches, and sputtering lawn mowers.
He wasn’t much of a philosophic individual, but for a few seconds, he thought it would be tragic to have a world where all the swimming holes were paved over. Do all the good memories go with them? New swimming holes were not being built. Only ugly houses, and even uglier buildings, were being constructed. Saying nothing, he drove past the sign.
###
The local La Quinta Hotel stood on the beach. Guests could almost step on the sand when they left their rooms. The room was exceptional, but he wasn’t going to spend much time in it. He dropped his suitcase on the bed, took his overnight case into the bathroom, and phoned Phil Harkness again. He had talked to the man before leaving Winchester Beach. A friendly voice came on the line.
“Mr. Orlando. Good to hear from you again. Do you still plan to investigate the Richardson case?”
“Yes, I do. Jack Richardson wanted to take one last stab at solving the case. I know the odds are against it, but I want to see if I can find out any new information.”
“That’s going to be difficult. A number of reporters, myself included, did our best to scrape up every piece of evidence we could find, and we all came up empty. The police investigators all came up empty, too.”
“Maybe lightning will strike. I still want to try, although I told Jack Richardson that I couldn’t promise anything. So, I’m starting with you. Jack told me you kept an interest in the case through the years.”
“I did, and I’ve still got zilch, but I would be happy to talk to. Why don’t you come out to my house? I banged my knee up about a week ago. My doctor has told me stay off it for a while. I can give you the address. Would you like to come over this afternoon?”
“Yes, that would me fine. I just got into town. I could drive over after lunch.”
Orlando grabbed a pen and wrote down Harkness’ address.
“You can’t miss it. I’ve got a nice size lake on the back of my property. So, I took up fishing and enjoy it now,” Harkness said. “I’ll probably be on our sundeck. My wife, Joy, and I have three children, and they are all in different parts of Florida. So, usually we just sit on the sundeck, watching time go by. Come on out.”
“Than
k you, Mr. Harkness.”
He made two other calls, one to the newspaper and one to the police department. The city editor said that the newspaper had kept a Lyndon Richardson file for years, and he was welcome to read it. The public information officer of the city police department also said their file on the case was public information.
His second-story room had a balcony, where there was a wrought iron patio table and two black chairs. He walked out and stood there, looking at the beach and the waves floating onto the said. Several beach walkers strolled through the shallows. Approximately twenty people lay on colourful beach towels spread on the sand. He enjoyed the view, but the daunting nature of the task suddenly hit him like a cold wind from the sea.
He was searching for a killer from a 25-year-old crime? A crime that had been worked and re-worked by multiple investigators? Then he laughed, when he remembered a line from a favorite movie.
“Never tell me the odds,” Han Solo once said.
That was a philosophy he was going to live by from now on.
###
Harkness was a slim man, with black hair fading into a distinguished gray. He wore black glasses and, even with the gray, had what Orlando thought was a young face. He got up from his patio chair and offered his hand. Orlando shook it. Harkness sat on his sun porch, that faced the large, deep blue lake in back of his house. The wind whistled over the land, and created strong ripples that flowed across the waters. A small dock was in the water with a paddle boat tied up to it.
“Sit down, Mr. Orlando. Can I get you anything?”
“No. I just had lunch, but thanks.”
Harkness sat back down. “I’m glad you ate before you came. If not, talking about the Richardson case would have probably given you indigestion, but I will do my best to help you. The case has bothered me for years. It’s been like a burr in my butt. For a quarter of a century I’ve thought about it, thinking this man might have done it, or that man might have done it. Then, changed my mind and came to no conclusion at all.”
“I’ve read some of the details of the case, but I want to read more, so I’m not going to ask you about the basic details. I wondered if you had a suspect in mind after studying the case.”
Harkness shook his head. “No real suspects. I could toss out some names, but there’s nothing to link them with the murder. This was a particularly vicious crime. The man, and I’m guessing it’s a man, who did it, didn’t just murder Mayor Richardson, he murdered a friend of the mayor, as well. He was prepared to kill two people to get one. Usually, Lyndon took a walk with his friend, Allen Bayridge, three times a week. And usually their wives walked with them. So the murderer might have been prepared to kill four people, not just one. Fortunately, the wives of the two men were down with the flu that day. Can you imagine that much hate in a man?”
Orlando sighed. “No, I really can’t, but when the motive is greed and political power….”
“Yes, but even then….” Harkness closed his mouth. “This is a case where you leave sentences unfinished.”
“So, you have no prime suspect?’
“Not really. If I had to choose, I’d think Rollo Armister would have filled that role, back when he was alive. Rollo was an old-time Florida politician, and was in his sixties when Mayor Richardson was killed. He had served on the Linwood Springs City Council for about ten years, and also served on the local hospital board, although why residents voted him on the hospital board I’ll never know. Rollo was, or could be, swamp crude, but he was political shrewd. The city has a mainland section and a beach section, and Rollo also managed to get himself elected mayor of Beachland Shores, a very rich community in the beach section of the county. I was amused to watch crude Rollo deal with all the filthy rich. When more of the rich moved, he retired, but only because he knew he would lose the next election. I’ll give the man his due. He was a good politician. An excellent politician, but there was also an utter ruthlessness about him.”
“Jack Richardson gave me his notes on the murder, too. Armister was the man he said would have opponents assaulted if they raised too many questions.”
“That’s Rollo,” Harkness said. “In my work, I’ve dealt with a lot of rumors. I can tell you that most of the rumors about elected officials, businessmen, rich people and, for that matter, reporters, are not true. But most of the stories about Rollo were true. In his early days in the city, he ran an auto dealership. When he sold a lemon to a customer and the guy complained, he’d ask the guy to come into his office, and then would beat him up. Rollo was a good-sized man. He had the weight advantage on most people. He got away with it because he was a friend of the police chief at that time. Rollo didn’t mind violence to make his point.”
Orlando nodded. “I can see why he might be the prime suspect.”
The wind increased as the sky turned a darker grey. A few drops of lake water were swept up by the wind and splatted the two men, darkening their clothes.
“But there are a couple of problems with that theory. First, believe it or not, Lyndon Richardson was a friend of Rollo. Richardson, like Rollo, had been in the city a long time, and Richardson did have trouble believing the more ….er, shall I say, graphic stories about Amister. Lyndon always liked to believe the best of people. Not that Rollo would mind murdering a friend, although I think that’s a reach, even for him. I have trouble imaging that he would murder Lyndon Richardson. There was blackness in Rollo’s soul, but I can’t believe it was that dark.”
Orlando’s fingers wrapped around his chin. His index finger scratched his lips.
“I recall Jack Richardson saying Amister had very few dealings with the city at the time of the murder, so he really had no motive.”
“That’s true. He was living in Beachland Shores, and I don’t think he had any business with the city of Linwood Springs, and no longer cared about the politics of the place. Due to his background, I think Rollo would be the most likely suspect, if he had a motive. But I don’t think he did.”
Orlando looked toward the lake again. The air smelled of rain, but the only water in the air was the random wind-driven drops from the land. He had taken a pad from his coat and picked a pen from his shirt pocket. For a moment, he tapped the pen on the table.
“I’m trying to look at this objectively. Twenty-five years ago, when this crime happened, I bet it was difficult to think in objective terms.”
Harkness nodded.
“I’m thinking, even for politics….as you said the murderer could not have known the wives would not be with their husbands. Their route was well-known?”
“Yes, they took the same road, or roads, every time they walked. To the best of my knowledge, there was no deviation. So, if a man was planning the crime, he could have driven by the four walkers a week before and watched them on their route. They usually began about six or six-thirty. By that time, the afternoon Florida heat would have cooled down, and there might have been even a little breeze. I did speak to an investigator who said the murderer might have attempted the crime earlier, but some other person might have been on the road, or the road had other cars that night, so he went home. He might have wanted to kill Richardson two, three, five or six times before, but, for whatever reason, it wasn’t a good time. So he had to wait.”
Orlando shook his head. “Politics is about power and money but…this type of crime is just savage.”
“Yes, but sometimes politics can be savage. But you’re right. I have trouble thinking even Rollo would do it. He was comfortable with blackmail, and any number of other crimes, but this one…in that manner?”
Orlando clicked his pen. His eyes narrowed. “Who did he blackmail?”
“He and a number of others, who were kicked out of city government by Mrs. Richardson and her allies, tried to blackmail the new city manager, who was appointed after the old one left. His name was Anthony Howard, and he was one of the most honest men, and one of the finest public officials I’ve ever known. A man of steel inte
grity. I should say a man of public integrity. He did not have a happy marriage. Two years after his youngest child went off to college, he and his wife divorced. Rollo and a few of the former city staff, among others, discovered he was having an affair. They threatened to make it public. Plus, Howard had gone to a state meeting in Daytona Beach. His lady friend drove up. Rollo and the others said they would accuse Howard of paying for mistress’s expenses with taxpayers’ funds.”
“What did Howard do?”
“Told them to go ahead. Then he said, ‘And after you tell your story, I will tell the public about the blackmail attempt, and I will tell them who made it and what they wanted to keep quiet. They wanted a return to the old, corrupt ways of doing things in Linwood Springs, and I refused’. He called their hand and raised. Rollo and the others folded. But that happened more than a year after Richardson’s murder. The two can’t be connected.”
“Maybe,” Orlando said. But the tone of his voice held a trace of doubt. “Back then, you had a lot going on for a small town.”
“Yes, I remember those days. For a few years we had solid stories almost every week. I don’t think I ever experienced anything like that again. It was exhilarating back in those days. You were chasing a story almost every day. Enthusiasm and energy soared through my veins. But the good guys had won the election, and most of the news was good, and stayed good, until Mayor Richardson was killed.”
“Have any other possible suspects?”
“Jeremy Bankstrom, the president of the First Citrus Bank in Linwood Springs. Again, I have no proof. Bankstrom, who owned a good deal of the bank stock, as well as being the bank’s president, was probably the man who suffered the most financial loss due to the new city government. He could no longer use the city’s money without paying interest. He had to compete. I’m guessing the First Citrus Bank’s financial statement took a big hit the first year the new city administration was in power. Bankstrom was known as being a ruthless executive. How ruthless? I’m not sure. But I do know he was cursing Mayor Richardson for many months after the election. I don’t think Bankstrom would have been the driver. I think he would have hired it out, if he did it, and that’s a big if. Again, I have no proof, and the investigation did not yield any evidence against him. Back then, I knew city investigators and talked with them through the years. I can tell you, they didn’t have a main suspect. The case is as much of a mystery today as it was twenty-five years ago.”
Family Ties Mystery Series Box Set Page 16
