Chapter 32

 

When Fred returned to his office, Jan told him that Sgt. Brown and Penrod needed to see him right away. Fred had hoped that he could be alone to evaluate the new facts that had emerged with his interview with Schultz; however, he knew that he had to wait for a rare free period to accomplish that.

He called for the two policemen. Brown and Penrod entered his office and told him that they had completed their canvassing of the boat rental offices.

Brown said that a total of 127 people had rented boats during the period in question. The renters indicated that normally the number is much higher than that, but with the unprecedented amount of rain they had during the time in question, business had been way down.

Fred felt fortunate for that at least. He asked to see what they had. They had completed individual cards for each renter, displaying the name, address and phone number of each. In some cases the social security number was also listed.

Fred noted that about half had addresses outside of the state. He pondered if out-of-state people should be included in the investigation. If it was a hit man scenario, outsiders would be just as likely to have conducted the killing spree in the theater as the locals. His gut, though, told him that this was not the act of a hit man. He directed that all out of state renters be temporarily removed from the stack. That decision resulted in a reduced batch of 47 potentials. Since the killer was identified as a male, he also eliminated all female renters. This further reduced the list down to 42 people.

As Fred had expected, Paul was making waves in the department. Jan advised him that Paul had been in to see the chief numerous times while Fred was out of the station. The office rumor was that Paul was highly critical of the limited progress on the case; and in no uncertain words he had told the chief that. Fred tended to dismiss this as another dog-bites-man story, but he also realized that the chief recently seemed too willing to embrace this type of criticism, especially when a solution to the case was starting to appear more and more distant. To buy time and to neutralize Paul, he decided to assign him the duty of interviewing the remainders on the boat rental suspect list.

Fred suspected that it was going to be another blind alley, but at least it would keep Paul silent for awhile. Of course, when the leads came up dry, it would simply be another nail in Fred’s casket as far as Paul was concerned. Before Fred made his assignment to Paul, he innocently mentioned that he thought he had seen him on Main Street the day of the bank robbery. A guilty look suddenly replaced the perpetual air of confidence on Paul’s face. He said “No—I—I was in Orlando that morning and I just got back when I heard about the bank robbery.” Fred didn’t press the issue but found Paul’s response highly suspect, especially since Paul’s wife had indicated that Paul was sick that day.

* * *

That evening he briefed Maureen about recent developments. He revealed that he was troubled that he couldn’t identify the company associated with the box found in Sarasota Bay with the letters YO on it.

“What was the box like?” Maureen asked.

“It was a strange shape, about a yard long, about 3 to 4 inches deep and maybe 6 to 8 inches wide.”

Without looking up, Maureen said, “I know what it is, and I know the company’s name that was on it.”

Fred was flabbergasted. “How could you?”

“Based on your description, the box seems to be the shape used by florists to deliver flowers-—you know, long and narrow. And since you don’t ever take the time to send flowers to your mother during Mother’s Day, I have to do it. I always use Young’s Flower Shop on Bahia Vista. Check it out, I’m sure you will find out I’m right.”

“Amazing,” said Fred, “but I need to ask you another question. Slivers is stating he has no memory of his crime. Do you think that’s possible?”

“Again, Fred, without examining him I can only provide you with generalities. It could be a neurological cause such as a stroke or temporal lobe epilepsy. Or if the loss was precipitated by a great stress it could be dissociative amnesia. Certainly from what you told me about Slivers, he is not a typical murderer. So, acute stress, after he realized what he had done, could have triggered the memory loss. Without an examination, I can’t be sure.”

Fred wanted to continue the discussion, but suddenly he experienced a severe headache.

Great, he thought, now I probably have a brain tumor.

* * *

The next morning Fred took the box to Young’s and showed it to the clerk.

“Where did you get this box,” he said, “from the middle of the ocean?” The box still hadn’t dried out from its temporary residence in Sarasota Bay.

“Never mind, is it yours?”

“With the shape it is in I would hate to admit it but, yes, I recognize it—or what’s left of it. Actually this is our newer style box. We just started using it about a month ago.”

“Is that box used for all the flowers you sell?”

“No, it’s just for our long stem roses. We use two different size boxes for our roses; this is the larger of the two, used for a dozen roses.”

“Can you tell me who you sold them to if I give you the time frame I am interested in?”

“I can, if they used a credit card.”

“Ok, look at these dates on this piece of paper. That’s the time frame I am interested in. Now, do you have a ledger that you can show me?”

“Sure, you can borrow it if you like. The amount of the sale you should look for is $35.75. That’s what we charge for the a dozen long stem roses including taxes.”