Detective (34 page)

Malcolm at first was inclined to
question Gregory's growing habit,
then let it go, believing his
brother was indulging in a fad that
would shortly disappear. It was a
lapse in judgment that Malcolm would
regret for the rest of his life.

The marijuana came mostly in
"nickel bags" plastic bags
containing a small quantity of pot
and selling for five dollars on the
street meaning the area around South
Webster High. However, the total
amount consumed by the football
players and, by now, other students
consistently increased, prompting
greater trafficking and competition.

Even in those times, drug gangs were
beginning to pro

282 Arthur Halley

literate, and initially one such
gang, the Skin Heads, based in
Allentown, supplied the New
Berlinville students' needs. Then,
as demand expanded and with
increasing cash flow, a gang in
nearby Reading, the Krypto-Ricans,
looked covetously at the territory.
One day they decided to take it
over.

It was the same afternoon Gregory
and Russell left school and headed
for a seedy part of town. Gregory,
having been there before, knew
exactly where to go.

At the doorway of an abandoned
house a burly white male with a
shaven head confronted him. "Where
you headed, punk?"

"You got four bags of weed?"

"Depends if you got the green, man."

Gregory produced a twenty-dollar
bill, which the other snatched,
adding it to a bulging roll pulled
briefly from his pocket. From
behind, another man handed over four
nickel bags, which Gregory stuffed
beneath his shirt.

At that precise moment a car
pulled up outside and three members
of the Krypto-Ricans emerged, their
guns drawn. The Skin Heads saw the
others coming and dived for their
guns, too. Moments later, as Gregory
and Russell headed for the street to
get away, bullets were flying.

Both ran hard until Russell
realized that Gregory was no longer
at his side. He looked back. Gregory
was lying on the ground. By then the
wild shooting had stopped, and the
members of both gangs were
vanishing. Soon after, police and
paramedics were called. The
paramedics, arriving first, quickly
declared Gregory dead, the result of
a gunshot wound to the left side of
his back.

By chance, because he was driving
nearby and heard the dispatcher's
radio call, Detective Kermit Sheldon
was the first police officer on the
scene. Taking his son aside,

DETECTIVE 283

he spoke sternly. "Tell me
everything fast. And I mean
everything, exactly as it happened."

Russell, still in shock and in
tears, complied, adding at the end,
"Dad, this will kill Greg's mother,
not just him dying, but the
marijuana. She didn't know."

Russell's father snapped, "Where is
the stuff you bought?"

"Greg hid it in his shirt."

"Do you have any at all?"

"No."

Kermit Sheldon put Russell in his
official car, then walked to
Gregory's body. The paramedics had
finished their examination and
covered the body with a sheet. Uni-
form police hadn't arrived yet.
Detective Sheldon looked around. He
lifted the sheet, groped inside
Gregory's shirt, and found the
marijuana packets. He removed and
put them in his own pocket. Later he
would flush them down a toilet.

Back at his car he instructed
Russell, "Listen to me. Listen
carefully. This is your story. The
two of you were walking when you
heard the shooting, and ran to get
away. If you saw any of the people
with guns, describe them. But
nothing more. Stick with that and do
not vary it. Later," Russell's
father added, "you and I will have a
serious talk, which you're not gonna
enjoy."

Russell followed the instructions,
with the result that subsequent
police and press reports described
Gregory Ainslie as an innocent
victim caught in the crossfire of an
out-of-town gang war. Several months
after Gregory's death, the bullet
that killed him was matched with a
gun owned by a Krypto-Ricans gang
member, Manny "Mad Dog" Menendez.
But by that time Mad Dog was also
dead, having been killed in another
shootout, this time with police.

284 Arthur Halley

Not surprisingly, Russell Sheldon
never used marijuana again. He did,
however, confide in Malcolm, who had
already half-guessed the real story.
The confidence they thus shared as
well as grief and a shared sense of
blame made their friendship
stronger, a bond that would last
across the years.

Victoria Ainslie suffered terribly
because of Gregory's death. But the
cover-up contrived by Detective
Kermit Sheldon left her with a
comforting belief in Gregory's in-
nocence, and at the same time, her
religious faith consoled her. "He
was such a wonderful boy that God
wanted him," she told friends. "Who
am I to question God's decision?"

Malcolm was impressed by what
Russell's father had done at some
risk to himself to protect the
memory of Gregory for their mother's
sake. It had not occurred to Malcolm
before that police officers could be
figures of benevolence in the
community as well as enforcers of
the law.

It was shortly after Gregory's
death that Victoria said to her son,
"I wonder if God knew that Gregory
was going to be a priest. If He had,
He might not have taken him."

Malcolm reached for her hands.
"Mom, maybe God knew that I would
follow Gregory into the Church."

Victoria looked up with surprise.
Malcolm nodded. "I've decided to go
to St. Vladimir Seminary with
Russell. We've talked about it. I'll
take Gregory's place."

And so it happened.

The Philadelphia seminary, which
Malcolm Ainslie and Russell Sheldon
attended through the next seven
years, was an old but renovated
turn-of-the-century building, con-
veying serenity and erudition, an
atmosphere in which both young men
were immediately at home.

From the beginning, Malcolm's
decision to seek reli

DETECTIVE 285

gious orders entailed no sacrifice
for him. He was happy and composed
when it was made. In what he saw as
their order of importance, he
believed in God, the divinity of
Jesus, and the Catholic Church,
which brought system and discipline
to those other beliefs. Only years
later would he realize that, as an
ordained priest, he would be
expected to reorient that precedence
subtly, so that, as in Matthew
19:30, the "first shall be last; and
the last shall be first."

The seminary education, strong on
theology and philosophy, was the
equivalent of college, followed by
three more years of theology,
producing, at the end, a doctoral
degree. Thus, having graduated at
ages twenty-five and twenty-six
respectively, Fathers Malcolm
Ainslie and Russell Sheldon were
appointed associate parish priests
Malcolm at St. Augustus Church in
Pottstown, Pennsylvania, Russell at
St. Peter's Catholic Church in
Reading. The two parishes were in
the same archdiocese and only twenty
miles apart.

"I suppose we'll be visiting each
other all the time," Malcolm said
cheerfully, and Russell agreed,
their closeness having persisted
through the seminary years. But in
fact, because of heavy workloads and
a shortage of Catholic priests
worldwide, which would continue and
worsen, their meetings were few and
hurried. That is, until several
years later, when a natural
catastrophe brought them, once more,
close together.

"And that," Ainslie told Jorge, "is
pretty much how I became a priest."

Several minutes earlier, in the
Miami blue-and-white, they had
passed through Jacksonville. Now the
airport was visible directly ahead.

286 Arthur Halley

"So how come you left the Church
and became a cop?" Jorge asked.

"It's not complicated," Ainslie
told him. "I lost my faith."

"But how'd you lose your faith?"
Jorge persisted.

Ainslie laughed. "That is
complicated. And I have a plane to
catch.''

4

"I don't believe it," Leo Newbold
said. "The bastard probably thought
he was being cute, leaving some
phony clue so we'd bash our brains
together and get nowhere."

The lieutenant was responding to
Malcolm Ainslie's report, made from
a pay phone at Jacksonville Airport,
that while Elroy Doil had admitted
to fourteen murders, he had denied
killing Commissioner Gustav Ernst
and his wife, Eleanor.

"There's too much evidence against
Doil," Newbold continued. "Just
about everything at the Ernst
killings matched those other scenes,
and because we held back so much of
the information, no one but Doil
knew enough to put all that
together. Oh, I know you have
doubts, Malcolm, and I respect them,
but this time I think you're wrong."

A moment of obstinacy seized
Ainslie. "That damn rabbit left
beside the Ernsts didn't make sense.
It didn't fit the other Revelation
signs. Still doesn't."

"But that's all you have," Newbold
reminded him. "Right?"

Ainslie sighed. "That's all."

"Well, when you get back, I guess
you should check

288 Arthur Bailey

out that other name Doil gave you.
What was it?"

"Ikeis, in Tampa."

"Yeah, and the Esperanza thing,
too. But don't take too much time,
because we've got two new whodunits
here and more pressures every day.
As far as I'm concerned, the Ernst
case is closed.''

"How about the tape of Doll?
Should I FedEx it from Toronto?"

"NO, bring it back with you. We'll
have copies and a transcript made,
then decide what to do. For now,
have a good trip with your family,
Malcolm. You've all earned it."

With ample time to spare, Ainslie
boarded his Delta flight for Atlanta
en route to Toronto. A light
passenger load allowed him a
three-seat economy section to
himself, where he leaned back and
relaxed, enjoying the luxury of
being alone.

Despite his efforts to sleep,
Jorge's words kept ringing through
his mind: But how 'd you lose
yourfaith?

It was impossible to answer
simply, Ainslie realized, because it
had happened almost without his
awareness as incidents along the
way, subtly and over time, contrived
to steer him in a new direction.

The first effect occurred during
his seven-year education at St.
Vladimir Seminary, shared with
Russell Sheldon. Malcolm, then
twenty-two, was recruited by Father
Irwin Pandolfo, a Jesuit
priest-professor, to assist him in
researching and writing a book about
ancient and modern comparative
religions. Malcolm accepted eagerly,
and thus, for the next two years,
slaved over the book project as well
as completed regular studies. The
result was that by the time
Civilizatiorl's Evolving Beliefs was
ready for

DETECTIVE 289

press, with a publisher hovering, it
was hard to tell how much Pandolfo
and Malcolm Ainslie had each
contributed. Pandolfo, a small man
physically but with a large
intellect and sense of fairness,
then took an extraordinary step.
"Your work's been exceptional,
Malcolm, and you'll get equal author
billing. No discussion. Both our
names in the same size type, but
mine comes first. Okay?''

Malcolm was so overwhelmed that for
once he could not speak.

The book brought both men a great
deal of acclaim. But it also made
Malcolm, now an acknowledged scholar
on the origins of all religions,
question aspects of the single
religion to which he planned to
dedicate his life.

He recalled one occasion a
conversation with Russell near the
end of their seminary years. Looking
up from some lecture notes, Malcolm
asked, "Who was it that wrote, 'A
little learning is a dangerous
thing'?"

"Alexander Pope."

"He might also have written, 'A lot
of learning is a dangerous thing,
especially for priests-in-training.'
"

No need to ask what Malcolm meant.
Portions of their theology studies
had involved the history of the
Bible, both Old and New Testaments.
In recent years mainly since the
1930s historians and theologians had
uncovered facts about the Bible
previously unknown.

The Old Testament, for example,
still considered by many especially
lay people as a single, unified
text, was perceived nowadays by
scholars as a dubious miscellany of
independent documents from many
sources, much of it "borrowed" by
Israel at the time a small, backward
power from the religious creeds of
ancient neighbors. The Old
Testament, it was generally agreed,
covered a thousand years, from about
1100 B.C.E. the beginning of the Iron
Age to after 200 C.E.

290 Arthur Halley

Historians preferred the terms
"Before the Common Era" and "Common
Era" to B.C. and A.D., though in numbers
of years the meaning was the same.
As Malcolm once joked, "You don't
have to work it out like Fahrenheit
and Celsius."

Malcolm said to Russell, "The
Bible isn't holy, or 'God's word,'
as zealots claim. Those who believe
that just don't understand or maybe
don't want to know how the Bible
was put together."

"Does any of that lessen your
faith?"

"No, because real faith isn't
built on the Bible. It stems from
our instinct that everything around
us didn't happen accidentally, but
was an act of God, though probably
not God as portrayed by any Bible."

They discussed another scholarly
acceptance that no record or writing
about Jesus is known to have existed
until fifty years after his death,
and then by Paul in First
Thessalonians, the New Testament's
oldest writing. Even the four
gospels Mark's was first were all
written later, between 70 and 110
C.E.