Detective (52 page)

Patrick returned from the bathroom
blustering about the two hundred
bucks he had flushed away. Ignoring
him, Cynthia began to label and
describe the items she had placed in
plastic bags, including the gun and
bloodstained clothing, making sure
that Patrick was watching. After-
ward, she put everything in a
cardboard carton, intending to add
the tape recording later.

Patrick, pacing the room
restlessly, asked, "Why are you
doing all that?"

"Just to make everything tidy."
Cynthia knew it was an
unsatisfactory answer, but it didn't
matter. Patrick was high now, hyper
and inattentive. Dismissing the
query, as she expected, he launched
into a description of how he kept
his writer's notes in a similarly
organized way.

Later, after Cynthia had hidden the
box of damning evidence, she would
answer Patrick's question more pre-
cisely and in a way he would like
less.

The following evening, alone,
Cynthia played back the tape. The
quality was good. She had brought
home another recorder and an extra
tape to accomplish the next step.

436 Arthur Halley

First, on the original recorded
tape where Patrick described the
double killing, Cynthia performed
what tape technicians with a sense
of history termed a "Nixon-
Woods-Watergate" erasing a
previously recorded portion by
running the tape and holding down
the RECORD button with no microphone
connected. Using a stopwatch and
notes, she wiped out all traces of
her own voice. Afterward, just as on
President Nixon's crucial Watergate
tape, there were long gaps, but no
matter Patrick's performance was
clear and damning, as he would
realize when Cynthia played it back
to him. Meanwhile she made an extra
copy of the edited tape for that
purpose, putting the original in the
carton with the other evidence.

She sealed the carton carefully
with blue plastic tape bearing her
initials, then drove with it to her
parents' Bay Point house. There
Cynthia had a private room on the
top floor, where she stayed
occasionally and stored some per-
sonal effects. Unlocking the room,
she placed the carton on a high
shelf in a cupboard, out of sight
behind other boxes. She planned to
reopen the carton and remove the
labels that bore her handwriting;
also, while wearing gloves, she
would replace the plastics bags,
which had her fingerprints, with new
ones that did not. Somehow, though,
as time went by and other pressures
mounted, it never happened.

From the beginning, Cynthia did
not intend to have anyone view the
carton's contents. She simply wanted
Patrick to see her assemble and
catalog the items, giving her a
permanent hold over him. Then
eventually, she supposed, she would
put the evidence in a metal
strongbox and throw it into the
Atlantic Ocean, miles offshore.

. ..

DETECTIVE 437

Almost at once after the discovery of the
bodies of Naomi Jensen and Kilburn
Holmes, Patrick Jensen became Miami
Homicide's prime suspect and was
questioned intensively. To Cynthia's
relief, there were no adequate grounds on
which to arrest and charge him. It was
true that Jensen had opportunity and no
alibi. But, beyond that, there was a
total lack of evidence. She had also
cautioned Patrick to say as little as
possible while being questioned, and not
to volunteer anything. "Remember, you do
not have to prove your innocence," she
had emphasized. "It's the cops who must
prove your guilt."

Two minor pieces of evidence were found
by an ID crew at the murder scene, but
neither was conclusive. A handkerchief
found near the bodies matched others
Jensen owned. But nothing on the
handkerchief proved that it was his.

Similarly, a fragment of paper clutched
in Kilburn Holmes's hand matched another
fragment found in Jensen's garbage.
Again, it proved nothing. The bullets in
both bodies were identified as .38
caliber, and records showed that Jensen
had bought a Smith & Wesson .38 two
months before. But he claimed to have
lost the gun a week after buying it, a
search of his house did not reveal it,
and, without the murder weapon, nothing
could be done.

Cynthia was also glad that Ainslie's
team was not involved with the case,
which was handled by Sergeant Pablo
Greene, with Detective Charlie Thurston
as lead investigator. Since Cynthia was
known to have socialized with Jensen,
Thurston did ask her, almost diffidently,
"Do you know anything at all about this
guy that might help

i us?"

She had answered, pleasantly enough, "No,
I don't."

"Do you believe Jensen would have been
capable of killing those two?"

438 Arthur Halley

"I'm sorry to say this, Charlie,"
Cynthia replied. "But yes, I do."

Thurston nodded. "So do I."

And that had been the end of it.
It clearly did not occur to Sergeant
Greene, Detective Thurston, or
anyone else in Homicide that
Detective Cynthia Ernst, while
having been acquainted in the past
with someone who was now a murder
suspect, could even remotely be
involved.

The reason, of course, was that
the face Cynthia presented to her
colleagues, superiors, and most
others she met was cooperative and
friendly. Only criminals with whom
she dealt saw her cold and ruthless
side.

Patrick Jensen encountered that
side when Cynthia next saw him,
after cautiously avoiding him for
several months.

2

For Cynthia's next meeting with
Jensen she chose the Cayman Islands,
the ultimate discreet destination
where total privacy is possible if
that is what you want. Cynthia did.

They traveled separately and
stayed at different hotels.
Cynthia's reservation at Grand
Cayman's Hyatt Regency was in the
name of Hilda Shawl To avoid using
an identifying credit card, she sent
a cash deposit via Western Union and
added more cash on arrival. At the
check-in desk, no one raised an
eyebrow.

Jensen, obeying phoned
instructions from Cynthia, made his
own separate reservation at the
nearby, more modest Sleep Inn. But
for most of the three days and
nights in Grand Cayman, he stayed in
Cynthia's room, which overlooked
sculptured gardens.

When they first met there, having
been apart for three months, they
seized each other, hurriedly tore
off their clothes, and made violent
love so violent that when Cynthia
climaxed she pounded both clenched
fists on Jensen's shoulders.

He protested, "Jesus Christ, that
hurts!"

When they were lying calmly amid
the rumpled sheets, Patrick said,
"So much happened that last night we
were

440 Arthur Halley

-together, I never got around to
thanking you for what you did for
me. So I thank you now."

"Thanks aren't important."
Cynthia's voice was deliberately
offhand. "I simply paid a purchase
price."

Patrick laughed. "What does that
mean?"

"It means I own you."

There was a silence. Patrick said
slowly, "I suppose you're talking
about that box of tricks? You've got
it hidden away somewhere."

She nodded. "Naturally."

"And you think that if I disobey
you somehow, or offend you, you can
open it up and say, 'Hey, guys! look
at all this evidence. Now you can
nail that bastard Jensen.' "

"You write good dialogue." Cynthia
gave a small, tight smile. "I
couldn't have said it better."

Patrick's face had the ghost of a
smile, too. "But there's a detail or
two you've overlooked. Even you.
Like your handwriting on those
labels. And some fingerprints. . ."

"All of that's gone," she lied,
reminding herself that it was a
detail she must attend to soon. "I
labeled the bags so you'd remember
what I was doing. Now only your fin-
gerprints are on everything. And, oh
yes, there's an audiotape."

Cynthia described how everything
Jensen had said in her apartment
that night his admission of having
killed Naomi and her friend Kilburn
Holmes had been recorded. "I brought
a copy of the tape with me. Want to
hear it?"

He gestured dismissively. "Never
mind; I believe you. But I could
still rope you in by explaining how
you helped me hide the evidence. So
if they found me guilty, you'd be
fucked an accessory at least."

Cynthia shook her head. "No one
would believe you.

DETECTIVE 441

I'd deny everything and would be
believed. And something else." Her
voice hardened. "The evidence would
be found in some place where you
could have hidden it. Unfortunately,
you wouldn't know where that was
until an anonymous tip-off caused
the police to find it."

They faced each other fully then,
each calculating. Paradoxically,
Jensen leaned back and laughed. With
apparent good nature he lifted both
hands in a signal of surrender.
"Darling Cynthia, you're really a
skewed genius. Well, you said you
own me. I now admit you do."

"You don't seem to mind."

"This may be some kind of
perversion, but the funny thing is,
I rather like it." He added
thoughtfully, "It would make a great
story."

"Which you will never write."

"Then what will I do since I'm to
be some kind of pet you're holding
on a leash?"

The moment had come. Cynthia's eyes
riveted him. "You will help me kill
my parents."

"Listen to me," Cynthia ordered.
"Listen very carefully."

Moments earlier, when Jensen had
tried to talk to reason with her, as
he saw it, after her shattering
statement she'd silenced him. He
sat quietly waiting.

Now, taking her time, drawing on
earliest childhood memories plus
details she had coaxed from her
mother, Cynthia laid before him,
graphically and persuasively, the
whole story, sparing him and
herself nothing.

As a newborn . . . Custav's sick
sexual obsession with Cynthia. . .
his obscene probing. . . her own
innocent terror, growing each day
until, at the age of three, even the
sight

442 Arthur Halley

of her father approaching made her
hide under the covers, sobbing,
shrinking away. . .

Eleanor did nothing, thinking of
herself only of her own potential
shame and disgrace if Gustav's
perversion was revealed. . .

Meanwhile, Cynthia's young mind
was developing, even while Gustav
persisted in abusing her. . . Her
memories, now crystallizing, would
be carried with her down the years,
along with fear and rage. . .

The memories were monstrous of
Gustav's everincreasing sexual
interest in his daughter, stimulated
now by beatings. . . hard, stinging
slaps and blows for trivial
''offenses,'' their nature neither
explained nor understood . . . And
more, still more "punishment" for
what?. . . The bruises, the burned
legs. . . the endless lies her
mother told . . .

When Cynthia was six, her father
first rubbed himself against her. .
. And later, as her body grew the
ultimate perversion and
humiliation he began raping her, an
act so disgusting and painful that
she screamed. .. Gustav, obsessed
with his own satisfaction, took no
notice, perhaps even enjoying his
daughter's despair. . . Still
Eleanor did nothing . . .

Thus, with the stage set finally,
inevitably Cynthia's pregnancy
happened at age twelve. . . The
horror for a child now hidden away,
shielded from outsiders' view,
knowing she was ungainly, her body
expanding amid strange sensations
and movement inside her. . . Aware,
too, she was in deep disgrace, made
to feel guilty, yet helpless to help
herself, and with no one to talk
with, to lean on, or to trust. . .
And at the degrading, secret, pain-
ful birthing, the baby she never saw
whisked away. . .

The sole consolation: The sexual
assaults by Gustav, which had
continued through her pregnancy,
somehow

DETECTIVE 443

ceased, for reasons she never
knew until much later, when her
mother reluctantly revealed their
lawyer's threat to expose Gustav if
he didn't stop . . .

Then, like some evil postscript,
Eleanor and her statement to the
welfare woman that official person
who accepted the glib lies and never
insisted on hearing Cynthia's story
. . .

Eventually, and despite everything,
Cynthia's coldly pragmatic
calculation . . . her decision to
bide her time, to use her parents
until her independence was assured,
and then to exercise her
long-festering hatred and to kill
them as they had killed so much in
her. . .

That retribution time was nearer
now, as she began to plan . . . And
she had her instrument. . .

Throughout the entire recital,
Patrick Jensen scarcely moved. But
his face was a mirror of successive
emotions incredulity at first, then
disgust, anger, horror, and concern.
At one point his eyes even brimmed
with tears. At another he reached
out as if to take Cynthia's hand,
but she withdrew it.

At the end he shook his head in
anguish. "Unbelievable." His voice
was barely audible. "I can hardly
believe "

"Goddam! You'd better believe it,"
Cynthia cut in sharply, combatively.

"I didn't mean that . . . Give me
a minute." After a pause, "I do
believe you. Every single thing. But
it's

so '

Impatiently, "So what?"

"So hard to find words to fit. In
my life I've done bad things, but
this kind of sick "

"Oh, Patrick, get off it. You
murdered two people."

444 Arthur Halley

"Yeah, I know." He grimaced. "I'm
a shit, okay. Yes, I did kill out of
passion, or impulse, or whatever.
But what I'm saying is that your
parents, over a long period, with
lots of time to think about what
they were doing. . . well, the way
I see it, your parents are the
stinking scum of the earth."