Detective (17 page)

After pausing to let Palacio
compose himself, Brewmaster
continued, "Let me ask something
else." He flipped through several
pages of his notebook, referring to
notes made earlier. "You told me
that when you came into the Ernsts'
bedroom this morning, you realized
there was nothing you could do to
help Mr. and Mrs. Ernst, and you
went immediately to a phone."

"That's the way it was, sir. I
called nine-one-one."

"But did you touch anything in the
bedroom? Anything at all?"

138 ~ Arthur Halley

Palacio shook his head. "I knew
that until the police got here,
everything had to stay the same."
The majordomo hesitated.

Brewmaster prompted, "What is it?"

"Well, there was one thing I'd
forgotten until now. The radio was
playing very loudly. I turned it
off. I'm sorry if I "

"Never mind. But let's go look at
it."

In the Ernst bedroom, the two men
walked toward a portable radio.
Brewmaster asked, "When you turned
this off, did you change the
station?"

"No, sir."

"Has anyone used the radio since?"

"I don't think so."

Brewmaster slipped a rubber glove
over his right hand, then turned the
radio on. The song, "Oh, What a
Beautiful Mornin' " from Rodgers and
Hammerstein's Oklahoma!, filled the
room. The detective peered at the
radio's dial, set to 93.1 FM.

"That's WTMI," Palacio said. "It
was a favorite of Mrs. Ernst. She
often listened to it."

Soon afterward, Brewmaster took
Maria Palacio to the murdered
couple's bedroom to ask another
question. "I advise you not to look
at the bodies," he told her. "I'll
stand between them and you. But
there's something else I want you to
see."

The "something else" was jewelry a
sapphire and diamond ring with
matching earrings, another gold
ring, a pearl necklace with a pink
tourmaline clasp, a gold bracelet
set with diamonds all of it
obviously valuable and left in plain
view on a bedroom dressing table.

"Yes, that's Mrs. Ernst's," Maria
Palacio said. "At night she never
bothered to put it away, just left
it out,

DETECTIVE 139

then put it in the safe the next
morning. I warned her once. . ." The
woman's voice broke.

"That's all, Mrs. Palacio, thank
you," Brewmaster said. "You've told
me what I needed to know."

Still later, replying to another
Brewmaster question, Dr. Sanchez
affirmed, "Yes, essentially the
facial and head beatings and body
mutilations of Mr. and Mrs. Ernst
are similar to those in the Frost
and Urbina cases and probably, from
reports I've received, in the Fort
Lauderdale and Clearwater cases
too."

"And the knife wounds, Doctor?"

"I won't be sure, of course, until
after autopsy. But superficially I'd
say the knife wounds on both bodies
are from the same kind of bowie
knife used on the others."

As to the dead rabbit, Dr. Sanchez
asked the owner of a pet store,
Heather Ubens, with whom she had
worked before, to come to the Ernst
house. Ubens, an authority on small
animals, identified the creature by
its commercial name, a Lopear
rabbit. Many of them, she said, were
sold locally as pets. Since there
was no sign of injury to the rabbit,
in Ubens's opinion it had been
killed by asphyxiation simply
deprived of air.

After the rabbit had been
photographed, Dr. Sanchez had it
sent to the medical examiner's
office to be preserved in
formaldehyde.

Sergeant Brewmaster checked with
Theo Palacio to see if the rabbit
had been a pet at the Ernst house.
"Absolutely not. Mr. and Mrs. Ernst
didn't like animals," the majordomo
told him, adding, "I wanted them to
have a guard dog because of all the
crime; I even offered to take care
of it myself. But Mr. Ernst said no,
with him being a city commissioner,
the police would always look out for
his safety. But they didn't, did
they?"

Brewmaster chose not to answer.

140 Arthur Halley

Subsequently police made inquiries
at other Miami pet stores, using
crime-scene photos in an attempt to
find the rabbit's purchaser. But
since so many rabbits were sold,
sometimes in litters of seven or
eight, and since few stores kept
detailed records, the search proved
fruitless.

Hank Brewmaster told Malcolm
Ainslie about the dead rabbit and
asked, "Is there something in
Revelation that fits the way those
other things did?"

"There's no rabbit in Revelation,
or in any other part of the Bible;
I'm sure of that," Ainslie said. "It
could still be a symbol, though.
Rabbits as a species are very old."

"Any religious connotation at all?"

"I'm not sure." Ainslie paused,
recalling a lecture series Life
Origins and Geologic Time that he
had attended soon after his
religious faith began to wane.
Details came back; he sometimes
surprised himself by how much his
memory retained. "Rabbits are
Lagomorpha that's rabbits, hares,
and pikes. They originated in North
Asia near the end of the Paleocene."
He smiled. "Which is fifty-five
million years before the Genesis
version of creation."

"You think our guy an obsessed
religious freak, you called
him knows all that?" Brewmaster
asked.

"I doubt it. But who knows what he
thinks, or why?"

That night at home Ainslie went to
Karen's personal computer, on which
he kept a King James version of the
Bible. The next day he told
Brewmaster, "I did a computer search
for any Bible reference to
'lagomorph,' 'hare,' or 'pika.' No
lagomorphs or pikes, but 'hare'
appears twice once in Leviticus,
once in Deuteronomy, though not at
all in Revelation."

"Do you think our rabbit could
have been intended as a hare, and
that way be a Bible symbol?"

"No, I don't." Ainslie hesitated,
then said, "I'll tell you

DETECTIVE 141

what I do think, after a lot of
thought last night. I don't believe
that rabbit is a Revelation symbol
at all. It doesn't fit. I reckon
it's a fake."

As Brewmaster looked at him
curiously, he went on, "All those
other symbols left at murder scenes
fitted something specific. Like the
four dead cats 'four beasts' and the
red moon 'the moon became as
blood' and the trumpet 'a great
voice, as of a trumpet.' "

"I remember." Brewmaster nodded.

"Oh, sure, a rabbit could be a
'beast' Revelation's full of
beasts.'' Ainslie shook his head.
"Somehow I don't think so."

"So what are you suggesting?"

"I guess it's mostly instinct,
Hank. But I think we need to keep an
open mind about whether the Ernst
murders were really another serial
killing, or whether someone else did
them and tried to make them look
that way."

"Aren't you forgetting? We withheld
those earlier crime-scene details."

"But some were published. Reporters
have sources; always happens."

"Well, all that's startling,
Malcolm, and I'll try to keep it in
mind. But I have to tell you, after
seeing that Ernst scene, I reckon
your thoughts are way out."

They left it there.

Soon afterward, Sandra Sanchez
announced her findings following the
autopsies of both victims. Yes, they
had been killed by a bowie knife, as
her first inspection of the wounds
suggested. However, the distinctive
notches and serrations in the bodies
differed from those at the other
killings, so a different knife was
used which proved

142 Arthur Halley

nothing, because bowie knives could
be purchased readily and a serial
killer might easily own several.

Thus, as days went by, and despite
Malcolm Ainslie's doubts, it seemed
increasingly certain that the Ernst
killings had been committed by the
same hand as the eight preceding
unsolved murders. The basic
circumstances were identical, and so
were the supplementals: the dead
rabbit, still possibly a Revelation
symbol; removal of all money; the
highly visible jewelry left
untouched; and the loudplaying
radio. Also, as with the earlier
murders, there was no fingerprint
evidence.

The investigators were troubled,
however, by the speed with which the
Ernst killings had followed the
Urbina/Pine Terrace Condo murders
only three days earlier. The pre-
vious killings had been spaced two
to three months apart. The media and
public were curious about that fact,
and asked pertinent questions: Had
the killer speeded up his deadly
mission, whatever it might be? Did
he have a sense of invincibility, of
being "on a roll"? Was there special
significance in a Miami city
commissioner being a victim? Were
other commissioners or officials in
danger? And what were the police
doing, if anything, to anticipate
the killer's next moves?

While the last question could not
be answered publicly, the special
task force surveillance of six
suspects had begun, with Sergeant
Ainslie in charge.

The Ernst murders, too, were
quickly assigned as a task force
responsibility. Sergeant Brewmaster,
while continuing to lead the Ernst
investigation, became a task force
member, reporting to Malcolm
Ainslie, as did the detectives from
Brewmaster's team Dion Jacobo and
Seth Wightman.

But even before all task force
duties were fully in effect, a
meeting took place that Ainslie knew
was inevitable.

At 8:15 A.M., two days after the
mutilated bodies of Gustav and
Eleanor Ernst were discovered,
Malcolm Ainslie arrived at Homicide
headquarters, having already met
Sergeant Brewmaster at the murder
scene for an update.
Disappointingly, nothing more had
emerged since the day before. A
canvass of the neighborhood, during
which residents were asked about
recent strangers in the Bay Point
area, had produced, as Brewmaster
said, "Nada."

In Homicide, Lieutenant Newbold
was waiting alongside Ainslie's
desk. He pointed and said,
"Someone's waiting for you in my
office, Malcolm. You'd better hus-
tle! "

Moments later, as Ainslie stood in
the Homicide commander's office
doorway, he saw Cynthia Ernst,
seated in Newbold's chair.

She was dressed smartly in police
uniform and looked stunning. How
ironic, Ainslie thought, that
severely cut masculine clothes could
become so sexy on the body of a
woman. The tailored,
square-shouldered jacket bearing her
gold oak leaves of major's rank only
emphasized the perfect proportions
of her figure. Dark brown hair,
trimmed to the regulation inch and
a half above the collar line,

144 Arthur Halley

framed her pale, creamy skin and
penetrating green eyes. Ainslie
caught the scent of a familiar
perfume and was suddenly overwhelmed
by memories.

Behind the desk, Cynthia had been
perusing a single sheet of paper and
now glanced up, her face expression-
less.

"Come in,' she said. "Close the
door."

. Ainslie did so, noticing that her
eyes were red, presumably from
crying.

Standing before the desk he began,
"I'd like to say how truly sorry I
am "

"Thank you," Major Ernst said
quickly, then continued, in a
businesslike manner, "I'm here
because I have some questions for
you, Sergeant."

He matched her tone. "I'll try to
answer them."

Even now, despite her coolness
toward him, the sight and sound of
Cynthia Ernst excited him, as it had
so often when they were lovers. That
erotic, arousing, provocative
interlude now seemed long ago.

Their affair had begun five years
earlier, while they were both
Homicide detectives. Cynthia had
been beautiful and desirable then,
at thirty-three three years younger
than Malcolm. Now, he decided, she
was even more alluring. AISO7 in a
strange way, her unyielding coldness
since their breakup, a year after
the affair began, made her seem even
more tempting and exciting than
before. Cynthia transmitted her
sexuality like a beacon always
had and to Ainslie's embarrassment
he felt, even in this unromantic
setting, an erection stirring.

She motioned to a chair that faced
the desk and said, unsmiling, "You
may sit down."

Ainslie allowed himself the
slightest smile. "Thank you, Major."

He sat, realizing that already with
their brief exchange,

DETECTIVE 145

Cynthia had made their relationship
clear a matter of relative ranks,
with hers now much senior to his own.
Well, fair enough. There was nothing
wrong with knowing where you stood.
He wished, though, that she would
allow him to express his genuine
sympathy over her parents' ghastly
deaths. But Cynthia returned her gaze
to the paper she had been reading,
then, taking her time, she put it
down and faced him.

"I understand you are in charge of
the investigation of my parents'
murder."

"Yes, I am." He began explaining
the special task force and its
reasons, but she cut him off.

"I know all that."

Ainslie stopped and waited,
wondering what Cynthia was after. One
thing he was sure of: she was deeply
and genuinely grieving. Her red eyes
proclaimed it and, to his personal
knowledge, the relationship between
Gustav and Eleanor Ernst and Cynthia,
their only child, had been ex-
ceptionally close.

In different circumstances he would
have reached out and put his arms
around her, or simply touched her
hand, but knew better than to do so
now. Apart from their having gone
their separate ways for four years,
he knew Cynthia would instantly raise
the inviolable, protective barrier
she used so often, eliminating the
personal while she became the
impatient, hard-driving professional
he had known so well.

Cynthia had also exhibited some
less admirable traits while Ainslie
was working with her. Her hard-line
directness made her reject subtlety,
even though subtlety could sometimes
be a useful investigative tool. She
favored shortcuts in police
inquiries, even if it meant crossing
a line to illegality making deals
with criminals outside of official
plea bargaining, or planting evidence
to "prove"