Florida Key

by Neil Watson

  Police driver Theresa Ashley, and her colleague William Wheatley were the first to pull off Route 150, and they began driving along the same dusty and bumpy track that Ozborn had travelled along a while earlier.

  The two of them had been assigned as a unit for the past four years and two months, having joined the force on the same day. After their initial training, their Captain had recognised they made a good team, and decided to put them together. The duo gelled, to the point where they became not only good friends, but their families also got together regularly for barbecues, wild-camping vacations and fishing trips.

  “Better turn off the siren and take it steady, now,” William suggested.

  “Sure. You’re right,” Theresa agreed. “We don’t know what we’re going to find,” she said. “Let’s not give this guy Ozborn any pre-warning that we’re coming. Who’s the guy he’s taken captive?”

  William looked down at his notes. “Oliver Markland—a British guy. Ha ha! You and he can talk cucumber sandwiches together when we get him freed,” he joked. Officer Ashley, like the guy they were trying to rescue, was British born, having left her home town as a teenager. Until Theresa had joined the police, she had been a well-respected owner of a cab company, but her work hadn’t given her the fulfilment she was craving. So, she sold the business and decided to work at driving of a different kind. Now, at 53, becoming a policewoman, she knew she’d found her true vocation, and loved every minute of the job.

  Her partner became more serious as he continued briefing his driver, taking a last drag of his cigarette before stubbing it out and flicking it from the window. “They say Markland’s got a tracker on his phone. But unfortunately, we can’t access it until the other party gets here. A woman by the name of O’Mahoney is on her way now with Detective Hardy.”

  “I see. The big gun’s coming out to play, is he? We’re honoured!” Theresa said with a smile.

  “Yeah. But George is alright,” answered William. “I guess they should be arriving anytime soon. But let’s see if we can wrap this up before they get here, shall we, and add another to our list of triumphs?”

  “Right on,” answered Theresa, with her usual enthusiasm for getting a job done. William looked up from his clipboard. “Wait a minute—I think I know this place. I came fishing here once—up at the river near the old saw mill. I guess I would have come at it from the north, and that’s why I didn’t recognise it straight away. Look. There’s the old woodshed up ahead a mile. Maybe that’s where they’re at. Come on, partner—let’s get to it. Drive real nice and quiet and park behind those bushes up there in the distance, and we’ll go the rest of the way on foot.”

  “Right on,” William repeated. The two of them liked being cops, putting the world to rights. For Theresa, it was more exciting than picking up fares for a living, and the ever youthful-looking tall and lanky William, with six young children to provide for and grateful to have a job, thanked the Lord each day it was this one. He couldn’t imagine doing anything different.

  ***

  Inside the woodshed, Oliver crouched down on the landing floor in complete silence. He was out of sight from the point where Ozborn entered the building, but capable of viewing everything on the ground below.

  Oliver was now looking down at a man who appeared like he was possessed, with his face red with rage, unkempt hair and eyes focussed and menacing. At first, Ozborn stood motionless and looked all around, noticing the broken staircase as well as the collection of poles next to the saw-bench. Sherlock must be somewhere, he knew, perhaps in the next saw-shed that he remembered was on the other side of the door. He approached the door and turned the handle, not expecting it to be locked, but it was. He took a few steps back and tried to ram it with the left side of his body. Ouch! Surprisingly, despite its rotten timbers, it didn’t budge. All he managed to do was to cause a spasm of pain to go down his shoulder. Damn! What with the remnants of Sherlock’s vomit still on his hands, he wasn’t in the mood for this. He called out.

  “I know you’re in here. Why don’t you make this easier for both of us and come out? I only wanna talk to you. I’m not gonna harm you.” Ozborn listened to the silence for a few seconds before stepping away from the door, raising his right leg to kick it in. The door still didn’t open, but this time he managed to jar the whole of his right side. More pain. Now his patience really snapped and he decided to escalate proceedings to a higher level. He pulled his gun out.

  Aiming at the metal lock, he took a shot. A loud crack rang out, almost deafening Oliver as he watched on from above. But even more alarming than the sound was the ricochet of the bullet as it bounced away from the door, whizzing past Ozborn and embedding itself in the bench. “Fuck, that was close,” mumbled Ozborn. “But it looks like it did the trick,” as he examined the lock casing to see that it was now hanging off the door by a single screw. He gave the door one more kick, and it swung open on its rusty thick hinges, revealing the other saw-shed next door that he knew from memory was located there.

  Ozborn looked around. Unaware that the two officers outside in their car had also heard the gunshot, he went over to the ladder that was lying on the floor. “Well, the son-of-a-bitch came in,” he reasoned, “and he ain’t nowhere to be seen down here, that’s for sure. So, there’s only one place he can be, Ozborn determined, and that’s up on the landing.”

  “Come on, Sherlock,” he called out, trying to sound reasonable. “You’re up there somewhere, I know it. Let’s talk, shall we? We can work this out now, like civilised human beings.” Oliver had difficulty not passing out with fear, especially now that Ozborn was out of his line of sight, and he could only hear the sound of Ozborn struggling to drag the heavy ladder along the ground.

  Outside, Ashley and Wheatley, whose vehicle was now quietly creeping along near to the saw-sheds, had just heard through their open windows what they knew instinctively was a gunshot. “Did you hear that?” asked Ashley. “It sounded like it came from inside the building.” Ashley drove the car to a patch of ground shrouded by bushes, and halted. They both got out and closed the car doors as quietly as they could behind them, then ran, heads down, to the barn door, the same one that Oliver had pulled the bar across.

  “Probably locked on the inside,” whispered Wheatley. Wanting to keep the element of surprise on their side, they deftly moved along with their backs against the building’s wall, looking for another entrance. Both had now taken their guns from their holsters, holding them primed and close to their chests.

  CHAPTER 42

  (MONDAY, 22ND JANUARY, 2018)

  Siobhan Reveals

  Yushi’s Note

  J ust as officers Ashley and Wheatley were searching for an entrance to the barn, Detective Hardy and Siobhan were approaching the highway turnoff to Flatrock. With their blue light flashing and siren wailing, they were making good time, but anxious to get to Oliver and Ozborn as soon as they could. They were closely followed by newspaper staff, Peter and David, who were doing their best to keep up.

  During the journey from Terre Haute, Siobhan had taken the opportunity to properly reread Yushi Yakamoto’s note and convey its contents to the detective as he drove, explaining its background complexities as they sped along the Interstate highway. Hardy went over the story.

  “So Yakamoto said he did kill Sandy Beach all along, then, even though he maintained his innocence right up to the end as far as everyone else was concerned?” Hardy asked.

  “Yes,” answered Siobhan. “Until us, Emanuele had been the only person who knew the whole truth, according to Yushi, about what happened that evening she was killed.”

  “But this guy Mark also hit the woman as well? Before Yakamoto interrupted their little sex game?” Hardy went on, trying to get his head around the details of what had happened.

  “According to Yakamoto’s note, yes,” confirmed Siobhan. “According to his confession note that he wrote by hand and gave to Emanuele, Yakamoto turned up and witnessed Beach getting roughed up by Ozborn, w
ith her consent, and felt embarrassed, upset and sickened. Not to mention jealous and confused.”

  “So Sandy Beach and ‘Mark’ then carried on with their sordid sadomasochistic activities that Yakamoto wanted no part in, until Mark staggers away and falls asleep outside? And then Yakamoto totally loses it, and clouts Beach on the head with his bike radio?” Hardy continued. “Yakamoto was uncontrollably furious that Sandy Beach preferred the other guy more than him, and something inside him just flipped?”

  “Exactly! You know the saying ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’? Well, I guess it was like that, except Yakamoto acted like he’d taken on the role of the scorned woman,” said Siobhan, looking again at the image of Yushi’s note on her phone. “He must have been deluded into thinking that she loved him. See, it says here: “I finally got a girl to show me love, or so I thought. How could she have been so cruel as to lead me on?” Siobhan read, verbatim.

  “But what does the part about ‘CFNM-DOM’ mean? What’s all that about?” Hardy asked. “I don’t get it.”

  “Well,” began Siobhan, feeling a little embarrassed, having to talk about a sensitive subject with a man double her age, who she barely knew. “I’m no expert, but I believe ‘CFNM’ means ‘Clothed Female, Naked Male’, where the woman—Sandy in our case—takes control over the man, Ozborn, and DOM-inates the sexual proceedings, commanding him to do whatever she tells him. The game is that he obeys.”

  “Including, in this case, getting this guy Mark to treat her roughly and slap her about?” Hardy asked, his eyes rolling upwards in disgust. “But if Yakamoto was so sweet and innocent at the time, how did he know about all that stuff?” he puzzled.

  Siobhan guessed the answer. “Because he’d discussed all that had happened in detail with Emanuele while they were sharing their cell together. It was Emanuele who’d educated him in the ways of the sexually-deviant, sordid world.”

  Siobhan was uncomfortable discussing the subject, but was glad that the online research she’d undertaken had proven useful. Hardy kept quiet, concentrating on the road ahead, while listening intently as Siobhan went on: “For Sandy, the physical pain from being knocked about by this guy Mark, bizarrely, was what turned her on, how she got her kicks, excuse the pun. I guess she got hers from a dominatrix sex game, while the guy got his from the booze and drugs. She egged Yakamoto on even further when she noticed he had returned to the house while she and Mark were doing their thing. Perhaps being watched really got her going. Only she knew that Yakamoto was there. The man was too out of his head to be aware of his presence.”

  “Hmm, I think I’m understanding,” said Hardy, slowly. But being totally honest, he wasn’t sure that he really was.

  Siobhan continued interpreting Yakamoto’s note for his benefit: “Mark hit her hard and she fell to the ground, concussed but conscious, still infatuated with the man’s slaps and wanting more. The man’s intake of weed, and God knows what else, then got the better of him, and he goes outside completely drunk and drugged up, passes out, naked, remaining there the whole night. Meanwhile, Sandy is on the floor, frustrated as hell, and apparently begins teasing Yakamoto for not wanting to join in the fun. I kinda feel sorry for the guy at this point. He was being ridiculed by the woman he mistakenly thought was in love with him. He certainly had massively misguided feelings for her.”

  “Then Yakamoto finally lost his cool with Sandy, who was continuing to tease him,” Siobhan carried on. “Instead of him helping her up, an argument between them developed when she upset him further for not being, in her words, a ‘real man like Mark’.”

  “And that finally pushed Yakamoto over the edge?” asked Hardy.

  “That would have done it for sure!” Siobhan confirmed, interpreting the confession note as best as she could. “I think you got it,” she agreed.

  “So, incensed beyond words, Yakamoto picks up the bike radio that he’d noticed in her kitchen—the same one that the guy Mark had stolen off his bike—and hits Beach with it while she’s laying on the kitchen floor?” surmised Hardy. “And kills her.”

  “Mr. Hardy, what if ‘Mark’ and ‘Marc, spelt M A R C, Ozborn’ are one and the same man?” asked Siobhan, slowly. If it’s the same pickup truck, according to Oliver’s text, it all makes sense!”

  “Please. Call me George,” he said, thinking hard, and trying to breathe a little light relief into such an intense conversation.

  “Okay, George,” Siobhan went on. “Yakamoto must have stood over her and whacked her with such venom that the radio smashed into fragments, knocking her out. Then he kicks her in the side for good measure, before coolly taking off and riding his cycle to the motel that Sandy had kindly booked for him earlier, as if nothing had happened.”

  Hardy had worked out the rest for himself without Siobhan’s help. “So, he knew that Ozborn, if that’s who it was, was asleep on the patio and would likely be the only suspect, knowing that he also had his fingerprints all over the radio,” he said, turning to Siobhan with a matter-of-fact expression, before concluding his reading of the situation. “But what Yakamoto hadn’t reckoned on was for Ozborn to wake from his stupor and disappear well before Sandy’s body was discovered by the neighbour. Gee, what a psycho!”

  “Yeah,” agreed Siobhan. “It was as if he simply blanked his mind after the event, and assumed that Ozborn would get the blame. Whether around the time Yakamoto’s bipolar state that Emanuele had referred to meant that he genuinely didn’t remember what had happened, or simply chose not to, is something we’ll maybe never find out. We only know that he finally confessed to Emanuele years later in his note, addressed to ‘MJ’.”

  Siobhan reread the beginning of Yushi’s note:

  MJ

  I did it. I killed Sandy Beach.

  “Perhaps his memory came back. Perhaps he suffered diminished responsibility. Or perhaps he was a cold-blooded killer all along. We’ll probably never know,” said Siobhan.

  Detective Hardy and Siobhan now only had a few more minutes until, according to the satnav, they’d shortly be turning off Route 150 to go along the track to Flatrock, just like Oliver and Ozborn, and Ashley and Wheatley had covered earlier. It was good timing because Hardy had only one final thought that he wanted to air before they arrived at the scene.

  “Okay, I have one last question for you,” Hardy began, turning to Siobhan and choosing his words thoughtfully. “So . . . we’ve established that Yakamoto had returned to the house without Ozborn noticing, and then not long after that, Ozborn had gone to the patio and passed out, right?” he asked. Siobhan nodded.

  Hardy continued. “. . . and then if Yakamoto had left Beach’s, and had cycled off to the motel that evening, long before Ozborn had awoken in the early hours of the following morning . . .” Siobhan frowned, desperately doing her best to follow Hardy’s line of thought.

  This time, Hardy spoke even more slowly than before. “So, if Ozborn had then seen Sandy’s body on the floor, dead . . . and he remembers hitting her during their, game of—what did you call it? CFNM? —then surely that means that all this time, since 1981, Ozborn’s been believing that he himself had been Sandy’s killer, not Yakamoto!”

  “Hmm, yes, I guess so,” agreed Siobhan, cautiously. “That hadn’t occurred to me. Ozborn must have been carrying a heavy burden around all these years, if that’s the case.” Then a frightening thought suddenly occurred to her. “Oh no!” she uttered suddenly. “What if Ozborn’s now thinking that if ‘Young Sherlock’ keeps delving deeper into the Bike Radio Murder case, his cover will be blown? If he thinks he’s been able to get away with one murder, he may be thinking he can get away with a second!”

  With an even greater degree of urgency, Hardy was determined to get to Oliver’s location as soon as they could—every second could count. His car tyres skidded and squealed as he braked hard, took the turning sharp left off Highway 150, and then sped up again along the uneven track, red dust and stones spraying in a cloud of dust.

  As he leaned out t
he car’s window and cut the siren and flashing light, he glanced at his passenger who looked deep in thought. Siobhan prayed that by now Oliver must have read Yakamoto’s confession note from her text message, and had put two and two together. She desperately hoped he might be able to negotiate with Ozborn and convince him of the futility of his actions.

  Detective Hardy brought Siobhan out of her deep thoughts with a start. “Okay now. Have we still got a signal from Oliver’s tracker app?” he asked. Just then, a voice came across the radio. “Is that you, Wheatley? What can you tell us?” asked Hardy, urgently.

  Wheatley took it upon himself to relay the grim news that they were certain they’d heard a shot fired from inside the building.

  CHAPTER 43

  (MONDAY, 22ND JANUARY, 2018)

  Ozborn Pulls

  His Trigger

  “Y es, we still have a signal,” answered an ashen-faced Siobhan, looking at her screen. “According to this, Oliver should be right here!” Hardy slammed on the brakes, and looked around. His car’s sudden stop almost caused the car following to smash into it.

  “Woah! That was close,” called out Peter, as he just managed to bring his own car to a stop, the two vehicles only inches apart. “Where’s Oliver? I don’t see him.” asked Peter, stepping out the car and going up to Siobhan. “Are you sure that thing’s working?”

  “Well, yes, I am. Look!” Siobhan handed her phone to him. Peter glanced at it before getting out and looking around the area. Up ahead in the distance, he could make out the timber buildings, and these were clearly marked on the map that was showing on Siobhan’s device. Next to their cars was a mass of undergrowth that continued all the way to the sheds, but the dot that indicated Oliver’s position wasn’t showing the sheds—it was right where they all stood.