Detective (62 page)

Jensen listened with the phone to
his ear; obviously Cruz was giving
him instructions. He replied, "I
haven't said anything, and I won't."
Addressing the detectives: "My
lawyer wants to know where I'm being
taken."

Thurston replied, "Police
Headquarters Homicide."

Jensen repeated the information,
said, "Yeah, see you soon," and hung
up.

"We'll have to handcuff you, sir,"
Ruby Bowe said. ''Would you like to
put on a jacket first?''

"Actually, I would." Jensen sounded
surprised. Going to a bedroom, he
buttoned his shirt and slipped on a
jacket, after which Ruby swiftly
secured his hands behind him.

524 Arthur Halley

"You guys are being pretty polite
about this,-' he said. "Thank you."

"Doesn't cost us anything,"
Thurston acknowledged. "We can go
the rough route when we need. We
prefer not to."

Jensen looked at him intently.
"Haven't we met before?"

"Yes, sir. We have."

"I remember now. I was pretty
obnoxious at the time."

The detective shrugged. "It was a
long time ago."

"Not too long for an apology if
you'll accept it."

"Sure." Thurston's voice became
coolly matter-of-fact. "But I think
you've got a lot more than that to
worry about right now. Let's get
moving."

Ruby Bowe was speaking on her
radiophone.

"They got Jensen and they're on the
way," Ainslie told Leo Newbold and
Curzon Knowles. Since their earlier
session Knowles had been away,
consulting with his superior, State
Attorney Adele Montesino, and had
just returned.

"Jensen's already called his
lawyer," Ainslie added. "Stephen
Cruz. He's on his way, too."

Knowles nodded. "Good choice. Cruz
is tough, though he can be reasoned
with.')

"I know him," Newbold said. "But
however good he is, nothing can
argue with the new evidence we
have."

"I have an idea about that box of
evidence," Knowles continued.
"Before Jensen gets here, why don't
we take that box to an interview
room, open it, and spread everything
out on the table? The moment Jensen
sees it all, he'll know he's cooked,
and maybe start talking."

"Great idea." Newbold glanced at
Ainslie. "Malcolm, will you set it
up?"

DETECTIVE 525

At Police HQ, Jensen was in the
course of being proc-
essed fingerprinted, photographed,
his pockets emptied, their contents
stored and recorded, other paperwork
proceeding. He was, he knew,
enmeshed in the cogs of an
impersonal machine. Who knew when he
would be free from it, if ever?
While concerned, at this moment he
found himself not worrying all that
much.

Ever since the detectives' arrival
at his apartment, his thoughts had
been in a curious limbo. He had long
feared what had so recently
occurred; at moments in the past it
had been a haunting nightmare. But
now that it was reality the
immediate fear was gone perhaps, he
thought, because of the
inescapability of whatever lay
ahead. In a foolish moment of
passion and emotion he had committed
a capital crime, and now, according
to the law and in whatever way the
judicial system chose, some
punishment was likely. Being human,
he would use every possible means to
escape or diminish that punishment,
though only later would he know how
good those chances were.

Of course, at this point he still
did not know what had changed to
prompt his arrest so suddenly, but
he knew enough of the system to
realize it was something important
and compelling. If it were not, he
would have been brought in for
questioning before a warrant was
procured.

After the routine processing,
Jensen, still handcuffed, was taken
in an elevator up several floors to
Homicide. There he was escorted to
an interrogation room nowadays, in
official "soft-speak," referred to
as an interview room.

Jensen was hardly through the
doorway when he saw on a table ahead
the opened box bearing Cynthia
Ernst's personal blue sealing tape.
And, beyond the box, its con

526 Arthur Halley

tents laid out one by one in a neat,
highly visible, condemning row.

Involuntarily Patrick stopped, all
movement frozen, as enlightenment,
despair, and a sudden hatred of
Cynthia exploded in his mind.

Moments later, having been pushed
forward by his uniformed police
escort, he was directed to a chair,
handcuffed to it, and left alone.

It was a half hour later. Malcolm
Ainslie, Ruby Bowe, Curzon Knowles,
Stephen Cruz, and Patrick Jensen
were all, by now, gathered in the
interview room. Leaving Jensen alone
for the intervening time had been
deliberate on the detectives' part.

"I'm quite sure you recognize all
of this," Ainslie said to Jensen,
gesturing to the assortment on the
table. Everyone was seated except
Ainslie, who circled the table as he
spoke. "Especially the gun that
killed your former wife, Naomi, and
her friend Holmes. Incidentally, the
gun has your fingerprints all over
it, and it fired the bullets that
killed them both all of that has
been certified by experts who'll
testify in court. And, oh yes,
there's a tape recording,
unmistakably your voice, in which
you describe exactly how you killed
them both. Would you like me to play
that?"

"Don't answer that question,"
Stephen Cruz advised. "If the
sergeant wishes to play a tape, let
it be his decision. Also, you do not
need to respond to those other
things he said."

Cruz, a small-boned figure in his
late thirties, with a sharp,
decisive voice, had arrived soon
after Jensen was delivered in
custody. While waiting, he had
chatted ami

DETECTIVE 527

ably with Knowles and Newbold, then
was brought to the interview room.

Jensen, visibly distressed, looked
directly at Cruz. "I need to talk
with you alone. Can we do that?"

"Sure." Cruz nodded. "That's your
privilege anytime. It'll mean
transferring you to "

"No need for that," Knowles
interjected. ''The rest of us will
go, and leave you here. Okay with
you, Sergeant?''

Ainslie answered, "Of course." He
collected all of the evidence and
followed Knowles and Ruby Bowe out.

Jensen shifted uncomfortably in his
seat; earlier his handcuffs had been
removed. ''How do we know they're not
listening?" he asked.

"Two reasons," Cruz informed him.
"One, there's something called
lawyer-client privilege. Two, if they
listened and got caught, they'd face
disciplinary action." He paused,
surveying his racquetball partner and
new client. "You wanted to talk, so
go ahead."

Jensen took a deep breath and
released it, hoping his muddled
thoughts would clear. He was weary of
concealment, and here and now at
least he wanted to disclose the
truth. Also, in whatever way the
police had obtained the damned box,
he decided, the blame was Cynthia's.
Long ago she'd led him to believe she
would destroy it all. Instead,
despite all he had done and risked to
protect and aid her, she had kept it,
and it had betrayed him. In return,
he knew that he would hold true to a
promise of his own.

Jensen looked up at Cruz and began,
"You heard what they said just now.
Well, Steve, those are my
fingerprints on the gun, I guess
those bullets really match, and on
the tape you didn't hear, it is my
voice. So what do you think?"

"My strong impression," Cruz
answered, "is that you are in deep
shit."

"Actually," Jensen said, "it's deeper
than you think."

"I'm going to tell you eve ything,"
Jensen said. still sitting in the
Homicide interview room with Stephen
Cruz.

As Jensen poured out his story,
Cruz listened, his face trying to
mask shock, incredulity, and finally
resignation, yet not succeeding. At
the end, after a long and thoughtful
pause, he said, "Patrick, are you
sure you're not making all this up,
that it isn't just another novel
you're about to write? You're not
bouncing the plot off me to find out
what I think?"

"There was a time when I might
have done just that," Jensen replied
dolefully. "Unfortunately, every
word is true."

Jensen felt some relief that at
least in this limited sense
everything was out in the open. Even
sharing seemed to ease the load he
had carried alone for so long.
Common sense, though, warned him
that the feeling was an illusion.
Cruz's next words confirmed it.

"I'd say that your first need
isn't so much a lawyer, but a
priest, or someone of that ilk to
say a prayer."

"That may come later if I get so
desperate," Jensen said. "Right now
I have a lawyer, and what I want
from you is the bottom line: Where
do I stand? What should I aim for?
What are my chances?"

DETECTIVE 529

"All right." Cruz had risen from
his chair and began to pace the
length of the small room, glancing
at Jensen as he talked. "According
to what you've told me, you are
heavily involved in the murders of
five people. There's your ex-wife
and her man; and the guy in the
wheelchair, Rice. Then there are
Gustav and Eleanor Ernst, who were
important people, and don't think
that doesn't make a difference;
also, that Ernst case is clearly
murder one. Certainly for the
Ernsts, and maybe also those first
two people, you could face the death
penalty. How's that for a bottom
line?"

Jensen started to speak, but Cruz
silenced him with a gesture. "If
you'd killed only your ex-wife and
the man, I could have claimed it was
a crime of passion and have you
plead manslaughter, which, in cases
where a firearm's used, carries a
maximum sentence of thirty years.
Since you'd have had a clean record,
I'd have argued for less and maybe
got fifteen, even ten. But with
those other two killings in the
wings..." Cruz shook his head.
"Those change everything."

He looked out the window. "There's
one thing you should come to terms
with, Patrick. Even if you avoid the
death penalty, there's no way you
can escape prison time probably a
lot of time. It's unlikely, I think,
that you and I will ever play
racquetball again."

Jensen grimaced. "Now that you know
the kind of person I am, I doubt
you'd want to."

Cruz waved the remark away. "I
leave judgments like that to the
judges and juries. But while I'm
your attorney and by the way,
sometime soon you and I have to talk
money, and I warn you I'm not
cheap anyway, as an attorney,
whether I like or dislike my
clients and I've had some of
each they all get the utmost I can
give, and the fact is I'm good!"

530 Arthur Halley

"I accept all that," Jensen said.
"But I have another question."

Cruz resumed his seat. "Ask it."

"What is Cynthia's legal position?
First, because of failing to report
what she knew about Naomi's and
Holmes's killing, and then
concealing the evidence the gun,
clothing, audiotape, all the rest?"

"She'll almost certainly be
charged with obstruction of justice,
which is a felony, and in a homicide
case extremely serious; also
conspiracy after the fact, and for
all of that there'd likely be a
prison term of five years, even ten.
On the other hand, if she had a
top-notch lawyer she might get away
with two years, or even though not
too likely probation. Either way,
her civic career is over."

"What you're saying is, she'd make
out much better than me."

"Of course. You admitted you did
that killing. She didn't know about
it in advance, and whatever she did
was after the fact."

"But in the case of the
Ernsts Cynthia's parents she knew in
advance. She planned it all."

"So you say. And I'm inclined to
believe you. But in my opinion
Cynthia Ernst will deny it all, and
how could you prove otherwise? Tell
me did she meet this Virgilio, who
you say did the actual killing?"

"No."

"Did she put anything in writing to
you, ever?"

"No." He stopped. "But, say . . .
there is something. It's not much,
but..." Jensen described the
real-estate brochure with the layout
of streets in Bay Point, on which
Cynthia had marked the Ernst house
with an X, then in Jensen's presence
had written words showing the maid's
working hours and the nighttime
absence every Thursday of the butler
Palacio and his wife.

DETECTIVE 531

"How many words?"

"Probably a dozen; some
abbreviations. But it's Cynthia's
handwriting."

"As you said, it isn't much.
Anything else?" As they talked, Cruz
was making notes.

"Well, we were in the Cayman
Islands together, for three days at
Grand Cayman. That's when Cynthia
first told me about wanting to kill
her parents."

"Without a witness, I presume?"

"Okay, so I couldn't prove it. But
wait." Cruz listened while Jensen
described the separate travel and
hotel arrangements. "I flew Cayman
Airways; saved my ticket, still have
it. She was on American Airlines and
used the name Hilda Shaw; I saw her
ticket."

"Would you know the American flight
number?"

"It was the morning flight; there's
only one. Shaw would be on the
manifest."

"Which still proves nothing."

"It shows a connection because
later on Cynthia must have drawn that
four-hundred-thousand-dollar payment
from her account at a Cayman bank."

Cruz threw up his hands. "Have you
any idea how impossible it would be
to get a Cayman bank to testify about
a client's account?"

"Of course. But suppose the whole
thing details of the Cayman
account was on record with the IRS?"

"Why would it be?"

"Because it damn well is." Jensen
described how, during the time in the
Caymans, he had looked covertly into
Cynthia's briefcase and, after
discovering the account's existence,
had made quick notes of important
points. "I have the bank's name,
account number, the balance then, and
the guy who put money there as a
gift an 'Uncle Zack.'