Detective (48 page)

"Goddam, I don't know what I'm
suggesting! All I

400 Arthur Halley

know is, I'm nervous as
hell wondering if someone in the PD,
even in this department, knows
something about the Ernst case that
you and I don't." Newbold rose from
his chair, paced his office, and
returned. "Don't tell me you're not
thinking the same thing, because I
know damn well you are."

"Yes, I have been." After a pause
Ainslie said, "What I thought I
might do to begin is study all the
files on every case, sort out what
facts were made public and what we
kept under wraps. Then we can see
how it all compares with what
happened at the Ernsts'."

Newbold nodded. "A good idea, but
don't do it in the office. If anyone
sees those files spread around, they
could guess what's happening. Take
them home and stay there for a
couple of days. I'll cover for you."

Ainslie was startled. He had
intended to be cautious, but not to
the extent of mistrusting his
colleagues. Yet he supposed Newbold
was right. Also, lots of people,
including outsiders, came and went
from Homicide, and there was always
curiosity about what was going on.

That evening, therefore, having
discreetly transferred five bulging
files to his car one each for the
double murders of the Frosts,
Larsens, Hennenfelds, Urbinas, and
Ernsts Ainslie drove home, prepared
for an intensive, probing study.

"I don't know why you're working at
home," Karen said the next day, "but
just having you here with all that
stuff spread out is great. Is there
any way I can help?"

Malcolm looked up gratefully.
"Could you print some of my notes on
your computer?"

Jason, returning from school, was
equally pleased. Joining his father
at the dining room table, he shoved
some

DETECTIVE 401

Homicide files aside to clear space
for his homework, and the two worked
side by side, interrupted only when
Jason had questions like, "Dad, did
you know that when you multiply by
ten, all you have to do is add a
zero? Isn't that neat?" . . . "Dad,
did you know the moon is only two
hundred and forty thousand miles
away? Do you think I'll ever go
there?" . . . And finally, "Dad, why
don't we do this all the time?"

It took Ainslie two full days to pore
over the files he had brought home,
extract details, make notes, and
finally create a crime-by-crime
chart, but at the end he had drawn
some important conclusions.

He began by reviewing the
crime-scene details that were kept
from the media withheld in hopes that
a suspect might incriminate himself
by volunteering such knowledge.
Included in those facts were the
series of bizarre objects left beside
the victims, beginning with the four
dead cats. Something else not
disclosed was the radio that police
found playing loudly at all the crime
scenes. Yet another detail was that
each couple, while bound and gagged,
was positioned facing each other. The
fact that all of the victims' money
had been taken was disclosed, but
there was never any mention that
valuable jewelry, which could have
been removed, had consistently been
left.

Some reporters, however, had
private sources of information within
the Police Department, and whatever
they learned unofficially was
broadcast or printed, restricted or
otherwise. Which left two questions:
First, had the news media managed to
publicize everything about the four
double killings preceding the
Ernsts'? Almost certainly not,
Ainslie thought. And, second, was
there a possibility as Leo Newbold
had implied of a leak within the
Police

402 Arthur Halley

Department, either accidental or
deliberate? In Ainslie's opinion,
that answer was yes.

Ainslie considered next: Were
there any differences between the
murders of Gustav Ernst and his wife
and the other Doll killings? Yes, he
discovered, there were several.

One concerned the radios left
playing at every murder scene. At
the Frost murders at the Royal
Colonial Hotel, the radio had been
tuned to HOT 105 and was playing
hard rock, that station's staple
fare. The Clearwater murders of Hal
and Mabel Larsen were next and,
because no radio was referred to in
the report, Ainslie phoned Detective
Nelson Abreu, the senior
investigator. "No," Abreu reported,
"as far as I know, no radio was on,
but I'll check and call you." He did
so an hour later.

"I just talked to the uniform who
was first on the scene, and yes,
there was a radio on, he tells me
now, says he remembers it was loud
rock and roll, and the idiot turned
it off and didn't report it. He was
a new kid, and I've reamed him out
good. Was it important?"

"I'm not sure," Ainslie said, "but
I appreciate your checking."

Abreu was curious about the
query's background. "The Larsens'
next of kin have asked whether Doll
definitely did those killings here.
Do you have anything on that?"

"Not at this moment, but I'll tell
my lieutenant you'd like to know if
anything breaks."

Abreu chuckled. "I get it. You
know something but can't tell me."

"You're in this business," Ainslie
said. "You know the way things are."

He knew that Doil's Raiford
confession had not been circulated
so far, and for the time being he
hoped it would not be. Eventually,
though, for the peace of mind of the

DETECTIVE 403

victims' survivors, the full story
would undoubtedly be released.

After the Larsens came the Fort
Lauderdale slayings of Irving and
Rachel Hennenfeld. During a liaison
visit to Miami, Sheriff-Detective
Benito Montes reported that when the
bodies were found, a radio was
"playing hot rock, so goddam loud
you couldn't hear yourself speak."

Then there were Lazaro and Luisa
Urbina, killed in Miami. A neighbor
turned off a loud-playing radio
while he called 911, but left the
dial setting unchanged at HOT 105.

A radio was also playing loudly
when the bodies of Gustav and
Eleanor Ernst were discovered by
Theo Palacio, their majordomo.
Palacio, too, turned off the radio,
but remembered it was FM 93.1, WTMI,
"a favorite station of Mrs. Ernst,"
he'd said, because it played
classical music and show tunes. WTMI
never played hard rock.

Was the type of music at the murder
scenes significant? Ainslie thought
it might be, especially when
combined with another difference at
the Ernsts' the presence of the dead
rabbit, which, from the beginning,
Ainslie was convinced was not a
symbol from Revelation.

So, he asked himself, was it
possible that whoever had committed
the Ernst murders had heard of the
Frosts' four cats and mistakenly
believed another animal would fit
the bill? Again the answer seemed a
likely yes.

Also significant was that Ainslie's
Revelation theorem had become known
to a small group of senior
investigators the day after the
Ernst murders, and before that time
the meaning of the murder-scene
symbols was anybody's guess.

Another time factor raised
questions, too.

After each of the preceding
killings Frosts, Larsens,
Hennenfelds, and Urbinas the elapsed
time before the

404 Arthur Halley

next double killing was never less
than two months and averaged two
months, ten days. Yet between the
Urbinas' and the Ernsts' murders,
the gap was only three days.

It was as if, Ainslie thought,
wheels had been set in motion for
the Ernsts' deaths, which would have
occurred after the normal time gap
if the Urbina killings had not
abruptly intervened. And while news
of the Urbina killings spread
quickly, was it, perhaps, too late
to stop the wheels rolling on the
Ernst murders?

A fleeting thought occurred to
Ainslie, but he dismissed it
instantly.

As to Elroy Doil's final killing,
that of Kingsley and Nellie Tempone,
while the crime lacked some of
Doil's previous hallmarks probably
because he was interrupted and tried
to flee the timing came close to
fitting what had gone before, and
Ainslie had a theory about that.

It was Ainslie's belief that,
notwithstanding the court ruling
about sanity, Doll was insane. If so,
it was possible he had a compulsion
to commit murder on a regular sched-
ule and, tragically for the
Tempones, Doil's killing time had
come.

But the validity of that theory,
Ainslie knew, would never be known.

Immediately following his two-day
research, Ainslie went on an
expedition to the Miami Police
Property Unit.

Property, a pivotal, bustling
organization, was located on a lower
ground floor of the main Police
Department building. Its commander,
Captain Wade Iacone, a heavyset,
graying, twenty-nine-year police
veteran, greeted Ainslie in his
office.

DETECTIVE 405

"Just the man I needed to see! How
are you, Malcolm?"

"Fine, sir. Thanks."

Iacone waved a hand. "Forget the
formality. I was about to send you a
tickler, Malcolm about those Doll
serials. Now that the guy is dead and
the case is wound up, there's a
mountain of stuff we'd like to clear.
We desperately need the space."

Ainslie grimaced. "Forget the
tickler, Wade. One of the cases has
been reopened."

"Tickler" was jargon for a periodic
memo sent to police officers who had
brought in crime evidence for
storage, perhaps, while awaiting
trial, or in the hope of making an
arrest eventually. In effect the
tickler said, "Hey! We've held this
for you a long time and it's taking
up space we urgently need. Please
consider whether you need it any
longer, and if not, let's get it out
of here." More often than not,
removing the evidence involved
getting a court order.

Another code word, "stuff,"
referred to vast quantities of items
stored in the Property Unit,
including narcotics cocaine and
marijuana in case-numbered plastic
bags, worth several million dollars
on the street; hundreds of firearms,
including guns, rifles, machine
pistols, ammunition, "enough to start
an insurrection," as Captain Iacone
once declaimed; blood and body fluids
from homicides or sexual assaults and
preserved in refrigerators; then more
prosaic stolen TV sets, stereos, and
microwaves, plus hundreds of sealed
and stacked-high cardboard boxes
containing the bric-a-brac of other
crimes, including homicide.

As for space, there was never
enough. "We're loaded full from floor
to rafters, and then some," was
Iacone's constant complaint, though
somehow new objects and boxes were
unfailingly squeezed in.

406 Arthur Halley

"So what's going on?" Iacone asked
Ainslie.

"One of those serial killings may
not be solved, so the evidence will
have to stay. But you said
'mountain.' Is there really that
much?"

"There wasn't a huge amount until
Commissioner Ernst and his wife were
killed," Iacone answered. "That's
when the big bundle came. All sealed
boxes. They told me there was so
much because the case was so
important."

"May I see them?"

"Sure."

The Property commander led the way
through offices and storerooms where
a staff of twenty worked five police
officers, the remainder
civilians producing remarkable order
from the packed miscellany around
them. Anything stored no matter how
old, and twenty years of storage was
not unique could be located in
minutes via computer, using a case
number, name, or storage date.

Iacone demonstrated the procedure,
stopping unhesitatingly at a pile of
more than a dozen large boxes, each
sealed with tape bearing the words
CRIME SCENE EVIDENCE. "These were brought in
right after the Ernst killings," he
said. "I believe your guys collected
a lot of stuff from the house,
mainly papers, and were going to go
through it all, but I don't believe
anyone did."

It was easy to guess what had
happened, Ainslie realized.
Immediately after the Ernst murders,
Homicide's special task force began
its surveillance of suspects, using
every available detective and
drawing on other departments, too.
As a result, the Ernsts' papers and
effects, while needing to be
safeguarded, would have become a
secondary concern. Then, with the
Tempone killings and the arrest and
conviction of Doil, the Ernst case
was assumed closed, and the many
boxes, it now appeared, had never
been carefully examined.

DETECTIVE 407

Ainslie told Iacone, "Sorry I can't
take the Doil stuff off your hands,
but what we will do is take a few of
those boxes at a time, study the
contents, then bring them back."

Iacone shrugged. "That's your
privilege, Malcolm."

"Thanks," Ainslie answered. "It
could be important."

13

"What I want you to do," Ainslie
told Ruby, "is go through every one
of those boxes stored in Property
and see what you can find."

"Are we looking for anything
special?"

"Yes, something that will lead us
to whoever killed the Ernsts."

"But you've nothing more specific?"

Ainslie shook his head. A sense of
foreboding he could not explain
warned him that uncharted seas lay
ahead. Who had murdered Gustav and
Eleanor Ernst, and why? Whatever
answer emerged would not be simple,
he was sure. A line from the Bible's
Book of Job occurred to him: The
land of darkness and the shadow of
death. He had an instinct he had
entered it, and found himself
wishing someone else was handling
this case.

Ruby was watching him. "Is something
wrong?"

"I don't know." He forced a smile.
"Let's just find out what's in those
boxes."

The two of them were in a small
room on the far side of the main
police building, away from Homicide.
Ainslie had arranged temporary use
of the space because of Leo
Newbold's wish to keep the revived
investigation as quiet