The Key

The key was heavy in my hands. It was a rusted, dirty skeleton key. A piece of paper hung off of one of the holes. It said “unlock your dreams.” Whatever that meant. There was no doubt in my mind that I should just throw the key back into the sand and walk away. Yet something about it had me hypnotized.

I had been walking along the beach, jamming out to some Britney when my toe stubbed it. There was nothing special or spectacular about it, other than it had probably been crafted in Medieval Times. It signified something though, there had to be a reason I found it.

“Unlock your dreams,” What in the world did that mean? It’s not like this key could suddenly open things up for me. It was a stupid old key. As I made my way up to the concessions stand, I noticed a locker that was out of sight. For a laugh, I decided to see if the key opened it. There was no way it would but maybe then, my fascination with the key would be over.

To my surprise the key fit right into the lock. One twist and the locker popped open. Inside was stacked with bundles of cash. Leaning against the money was a note, typewritten. “Use this to fund your dreams. But know that a stranger will be killed if you spend so much
as $1.”

I grabbed a bundle and figured how would they know. I wouldn’t have to count out change to get a soda. Briefly, I wondered if I should put the rest of the money back but decided that I didn’t need to, so instead I took another bundle.

On the drive home, I scanned the news radio stations to see if anyone had been killed. It seemed to be a negative. That note was probably just to scare people from taking the money. There was no way that anyone could know if money was taken from that locker.
Nobody would ever know what I did.

Once I got home, I decided to use some of the money to order pizza. As I waited for it to be delivered I turned on the TV and mindlessly watched a rerun of some current sitcom. There was a knock on the door. The pizza got to me faster than expected, I thought.
Standing at the door were two police officers. They seemed to contradict one another, one was old and stocky, the other young and thin.

“Can I help you guys?”

“Are you Josh Newman?” The Young One asked. Reluctantly I nodded. Still unsure of what was happening. “We need you to come down to the station with us. We have a few questions for you.”

“About what? I don’t mean to be rude but I have a pizza on the way.”

“Where were you at 2:30pm this afternoon?” It was The Old One and he had a deeper voice than his counterpart.

“At the beach.” They exchanged knowing looks, my stomach dropped. “What’s this about?”

“We have several eyewitnesses that place you at the scene of a murder. And you just collaborated that you were there.” Old One said as Young One forcefully turned me around, slapping handcuffs on my wrists. “You are under arrest, anything you say can and will be used against you…”

My mind went blank. How could I prove that I wasn’t a killer from behind bars? Security camera footage had to clear my name. It seemed to be the only way to clear my name, until I realized that only the concession and gift stands had cameras. They pushed me into the backseat, I closed my eyes and willed this all to be a bad dream.

After I was booked and fingerprinted, they put me in a lineup. Some mystery person selected me as the culprit. In the cell, I couldn’t figure out what was happening. How I could prove that I hadn’t killed anyone. A guard came and took me to a conference room. Waiting for me was a beautiful woman with jet black hair.

“I’m Linda Wilder. An attorney but not your attorney. I am here to tell you that these murder charges will go away if you can figure out who the victim is, their tenuous connection to you, and who the real killer is.” She slid a file over to me. The name of the victim jumped out at me immediately: Alicia Cormine. We had dated in Middle School. Dated being used lightly. “I see that you are already figuring part of it out. Very good. One more thing, I should tell you, if you figure it out the rest of the money in the locker is yours. If you don’t, then you’re going away for a very long time.”

The dossier contained all kinds of information about Alice, and myself. My working theory was that they wanted me to say that I killed her by spending the money but the deeper I looked, the more unlikely that was. Something stood out to me, it made no sense but I figured it was worth a shot. “Alice’s Mother, Karol killed her. Alice had been having an affair with her stepfather for quite some time, I vaguely remember the rumors from our Senior Year of High School. Karol finally got tired of playing second fiddle to her daughter, maybe Alice was even pregnant. Alice and I sort of dated in Middle School.”

Linda sat back, a Cheshire grin spread across her face. “Not bad rookie. We made it a bit too easy on you this time but that’s because you didn’t spend much of the money. However you are now a part of this group and we will come calling for you again. Next time it won’t be so easy but the rewards will be greater.”

After I was released, I got home and to my surprise a piping hot pizza was waiting for me.