Detective (4 page)

The official formula continued,
the wording more or less: You need
not talk to me or answer any
questions. . . Should you talk to
me, anything you say can be used as

DETECTIVE 27

evidence against you . . . You have
the right to an attorney at any time.
. . If you cannot afford an attorney
one will be supplied free of charge
. . .

Ainslie listened carefully.
Although police interview rooms were
mainly soundproof, voices could
penetrate the one-way glass in front
of him, so later he could testify, if
needed, that the Miranda warning had
been given. Never mind that Jorge's
voice had become offhand and casual;
the right words were what mattered,
though Thorne seemed scarcely to be
paying attention.

It was time for Jorge's second
calculated gamble.

Now, we can either keep talking,
Maggie, or I go back to work and you
won't see me anymore. . .

On the girl's face a look of doubt:
What happens next if this guy
disappears?

Jorge recognized the signs. He was
close to success.

Maggie, do you understand what I've
just said?... You're sure? . . .
Okay, so that's out of the way . . .
Oh, just one thing! I need you to
sign this piece of paper. It confirms
what we've been saying.

Thorne signed the of ficial release
form, her handwriting scrawly but
certifying that after having been
informed of her rights she had chosen
to talk to Detective Rodriguez
without a lawyer present.

Ainslie put away the notes he'd
made. Jorge was in the clear, and
Ainslie, already convinced of the
pair's guilt, believed there would be
at least one full confession within
the hour.

As it turned out, there were two.

As Jorge's questioning
continued first of Thorne, then, in
the other room, of Kaprum it became
evident they had had no coherent plan
to begin with, a fact that caused a

28 Arthur Halley

capital crime to be committed
instead of simple robbery. Then,
afterward, they had seriously
believed they could get away with it
by concocting a stew of lies, all of
which seemed ingenious to them but
ludicrous to anyone with
crime-solving experience.

Jorge to Thorne: About that car you
and Kermit were in, Maggie. You told
the trooper you'd found it just a
few minutes earlier, with the keys
in it, and took it for a ride . . .
Well, what if I tell you we have a
witness who saw both of you in that
car last night, saw the whole thing
happen ? Also, there were a dozen or
more empty drink cans in the car,
food wrappers, too. It's all been
sent for fingerprinting. What if
your prints, and Kermit's, are on
that stuff ? . . . Actually, it will
prove something, Maggie, because it
will show you were both in that car
a whole lot longer than just the '
few minutes" you say.

Jorge sipped coffee and waited.
Thorne drank some of hers.

Something else, Maggie. When you
were picked up and searched, you had
a lot of money on you more than
seven hundred dollars. Mind telling
me where you got that?. . . Working
for whom and doing what? . . .
Really! Must have been a lot of odd
jobs for all that cash. What were
the names of the people who employed
you?... Well, then, give me the
names of one or two and we'll check
with them... You can't name anyone?
Maggie, you're not helping yourself
here.

All right, let's move on. Now,
mixed in with those dollars found on
you were some deutschemarks. Where
did you get those?. . .
Deutschemarks, Maggie German money.
You been to Germany lately?. .. Oh,
come on, Maggie! How could you
forget something like that? Did you
get it from Mr. Niehaus? . . . He's
the gentleman who was killed. Did
you shoot him with that pistol of
yours,

DETECTIVE 29

Maggie? Tests are being done on the
gun. They'll tell us if you did.

Maggie, I'm talking to you as a
friend. You're in trouble, big
trouble, and I think you know it. I'd
like to help you, but before I can,
you'll have to start telling the
truth. . . Here, have more coffee. .
. Think about it, Maggie. The truth
will make everything easy especially
for you. Because when I know the
truth I can start advising you about
what to do. . .

And later, with the other, younger
suspect, Kaprum whose eyes did bulge
like a frog's, Ainslie realized the
questioning was tougher: Okay,
Kermit, for the past half hour I've
listened to you answer all my
questions and we both know that
everything you've told me is total
bullshit. Now let's pack it in and
have some facts. You and your
girlfriend Maggie hijacked that car,
robbed that old man, then killed him.
Now, I may as well tell you that
Maggie Thorne has confessed. I have
her written confession in which she
says the whole idea was yours, and
that you fired the shot that killed
Mr. Niehaus. . .

The nineteen-year-old Kaprum leapt
to his feet and shouted wildly, "That
lying bitch! It was her who done it,
her idea, not mine! I just went for "

Hey, hold it! Stop right there,
Kaprum! You hear me! Settle down!

It was like winning the lottery,
Jorge thought. Kaprum, reacting to
what he saw as Maggie Thorne's
betrayal, was now eager to relate his
own version of events. Ainslie might
have smiled, but he remembered the
poor dead German.

A Miranda warning had been given
Kaprum earlier. No need to repeat it.

So are you ready to tell me,
Kermit, what really happened and this
time the truth? If you are, you'll be
help

30 Arthur Halley

ing yourself. . . Okay, let's begin
when you and Thorne held up that car
and took it over. . . All right,
we'll put Thor'?e's name first if
that's the way you want it. . . So
where were you both when . . .

Jorge was scribbling on a pad as
Kaprum spoke quickly, blurting out
facts, heedless of consequences,
failing to realize it made little
difference, if any, who had done
what, and what counted most was that
the pair of them had killed in
collusion. When asked by Jorge why
any shot was fired at all, Kaprum
answered, "The old bastard
badmouthed us. Shouted a lot of crap
we didn't understand. He wouldn't
shut his goddam mouth, man."

When it was done, using a ballpoint
pen that Jorge handed him, Kaprum
initialed each page as having read
it, then signed what had become a
full confession.

A few hours later the ballistics
report revealed that three bullets
were found in the dead German's
body. One had been fired from
Kaprum's gun, two from Maggie
Thorne's. The medical examiner's
conclusion was that Kaprum's bullet
would have wounded the victim.
Either one of the two from Thorne
would have caused immediate death.

Ainslie was called away, then
returned in time to hear part of a
second session between Jorge and
Thorne. At the end the young girl
asked a question, her expression
serious. "What's gonna happen? Will
we get probation?"

Jorge made no attempt to answer,
and Ainslie knew why.

What could you say to someone who
was so strangely ignorant about the
gravity of what had transpired, and
the inevitable consequences soon to
come? How could Jorge tell a young
girl, No, there is not the slightest
chance of your receiving probation,
or even going temporarily free on
bail, or for that matter ever
getting out of jail again. What is a
near certainty is that after the two
of you have

DETECTIVE 31

been tried before a judge and jury,
you will be found guilty of murder
and sentenced to die in the electric
chair.

In court, defense lawyers going
through the motions would rant and
rave, complaining that Thorne's and
Kaprum's confessions had been
obtained under duress. The word
"trickery" might be used not without
some truth, Ainslie conceded.

But a judge, armed with testimony
that proper Miranda warnings had
been given and that the accused had
knowingly signed their rights away,
would dismiss the objections and the
confessions would stand.

As to the "trickery," Ainslie had
come to believe it was justified.
With any capital crime, total,
conclusive proof was hard to come by
and because of guileful lawyers
sometimes the guilty walked away.
The O.J. Simpson case came
inevitably to mind. But the Thorne
and Kaprum confessions, however
extracted, represented truth that
would lead to justice, and from
society's point of view and Ain-
slie's that was what mattered most.

The thought of confessions brought
Ainslie's mind back to Elroy Doil
and the reason for this interminable
drive. He wondered, as he had since
the phone call from Raiford earlier
tonight: What kind of confession was
he going to hear?

He peered out at lighted signs on
the roadway. They had left I-95 and
were on Florida's Turnpike, with
Orlando their first objective two
hundred miles away.

3

Malcolm Ainslie, who had dozed off
soon after passing Fort Lauderdale,
was awakened by a thump perhaps a
road bump or more likely a raccoon;
their carcasses littered the
highway. He stretched and sat up,
then checked the time: ten minutes
after midnight. Up ahead he could
see an exit ramp to West Palm Beach,
which meant they were a third of the
way to Orlando. Jorge, he noted, was
driving in the far left lane amid
fairly heavy turnpike traffic.

Ainslie reached for the phone and
punched in Lieutenant Newbold's
number. When he answered, Ainslie
announced, "Evening, sir. Miami's
finest here."

"Hey, Malcolm. Everything okay?"

Ainslie glanced to his left. "The
mad Cuban hasn't killed me yet."

Newbold chuckled, then said,
"Listen, I checked some flights for
you, and made reservations. I think
we can get you up to Toronto by
tomorrow afternoon."

"That's good news, Lieutenant.
Thanks!" He jotted down the details:
a 10:05 Delta flight from
Jacksonville to Atlanta, connecting
with Air Canada to Toronto.

He would be in Toronto only
slightly more than two hours later
than originally planned, and was
relieved. The

DETECTIVE 33

arrangement was not ideal because he
knew that Karen's parents, who lived
more than an hour's drive from To-
ronto's Pearson Airport, had some
kind of party planned for lunchtime,
which he would miss. But he would be
at the family dinner in the evening.

Newbold continued, "Have Rodriguez
drive you to Jacksonville. It's only
sixty miles; you'll make it easily.
And when you get back, we'll look at
your extra expenses and work
something out."

"That might appease Karen."

"Was she upset?" Newbold asked.

"You could say that."

Newbold sighed. "Devina's that way
when I get lousy duty, and mostly I
can't blame her. Oh, I called the
State Prison. They've promised to
waive formalities going in, so you'll
get to Animal fast."

"Great."

"One thing they asked. When you're
about twenty minutes from Raiford,
phone Lieutenant Neil Hambrick.
Here's the direct-line number."

Ainslie wrote it down. "Nice going,
Lieutenant. Thanks again."

"Hey, have a good trip and enjoy
Toronto."

Switching off the phone, Ainslie
reflected on the excellent relations
between Newbold and his white
subordinates. Like most others in
Homicide, Ainslie liked and respected
Newbold, a twenty-four-year veteran
of the force who had come to the
United States with his immigrant
Jamaican parents thirty years ago, at
age fifteen. Young Leo had attended
the University of Miami, where he ma-
jored in criminology, afterward
joining the Police Department at
twenty-two. Because he was black,
affirmative action of the 1980s
speeded his promotion to lieutenant,
but unlike some other such
promotions, because of New

34 Arthur Halley

bold's obvious ability, it was not
resented by his white colleagues.
Now he was in his eighth year as
head of Homicide.

A great deal was being written
nationally about racial disharmony
in big-city police forces, notably
the Los Angeles Police Department,
where ugly discrimination against
blacks, both on and off the force,
had had semiofficial approval from
the top over many years. Only now
was some attempted balance and
fairness taking shape in L.A., amid
bitterness on all sides. By
contrast, the Miami PD had gone
through the same traumatic change
more than a decade earlier, so that
integration, with only minor hang-
overs from the past, was now a fail
accompli. It worked, and the public
was better served.

To Malcolm's surprise, Karen was
sleeping when he phoned with the new
flight information, which he gave
her, then urged her to return to
sleep. "I'll see you tomorrow about
four," he finished.

She mumbled sleepily, but with
some affection, "I'll believe it
when I see it."

When Ainslie ended the connection
and settled back, Jorge's voice
broke into his thoughts.

"Sergeant, are you still Catholic?"

The question was unexpected. "Excuse
me?"

Jorge eased the blue-and-white
past one of the many
tractor-trailers traveling the
highway. When they were safely clear
he continued, "Well, you used to be
a priest, and now you're not. So I
was curious are you still a
Catholic?"

"No."

"Well, I was wondering, as a
Catholic, or ex, how you really feel
about this trip capital punishment,
going to

DETECTIVE 35

see Animal Doll before they strap
him in the chair, knowing it was
mainly you who put him there?"

"That's a heavy question this late
at night."

Jorge shrugged. "It's okay if you
don't want to talk about it, I
understand."