Detective (41 page)

"Anything helpful?"

"Well, this is funny in a way, but
Holdsworth does have a criminal
record in England and was smart
enough to declare it when he made his
green card application. Would have
been discovered if he hadn't, but
it's peanuts."

"Let's hear."

"When he was eighteen thirty-three
years ago he snatched a pair of
binoculars from the backseat of a
parked car. A cop saw, and arrested
him; he pleaded guilty, got two
years' probation, no record since.
The Immigration guy I talked to says
that when someone applies for a
green, they don't take something
minor and that long ago seri

342 Arthur Halley

ously, as long as the applicant's
declared it. Guess I wasted my
time."

Ainslie shook his head. "It's
never wasted. Save your notes, Pop.
Did anything come from other
interviews?"

"Not much," Jorge answered. "Two
people the chauffeur's wife and a
gardener now believe they heard the
shot, but thought it was traffic.
They have no idea about time, except
it was still very dark."

"Has anyone talked to the old
man Wilhelm Davanal?"

"No."

"I'll do that," Ainslie finished.

He, Jorge, and Garcia then joined
Julio Verona across the room.

"Take a look at this," Verona
said. From a plastic bag, using
rubber gloves, the ID chief produced
a small gold clock, which he placed
on the desk formerly used by Byron
Maddox-Davanal. He explained, "Where
I just put the clock is exactly
where ID found it. Here's a photo
confirming that." Verona produced a
Polaroid print.

"Look on the back of the clock,"
Verona continued, "and you'll see
there's blood quite a lot for such
a small surface. But" he paused for
emphasis "assuming it's the victim's
blood, and remembering the distance
from the body, there is no way blood
could have got on the back of that
clock where it is now."

"So what's your theory?" Ainslie
asked.

"During the killing, or
immediately after, the clock got
knocked off the desk into some blood
on the floor. Later, some
person maybe the killer saw the
clock, picked it up, and put it back
on the desk, where it sat until our
crew took this photo."

"Any fingerprints?"

"Sure are a good set. What's more,
two of the prints

DETECTIVE 343

were bloody, and there were no other
prints at all."

"So if you find a match," Jose Garcia
said excitedly, "we'll have the killer."

Verona shrugged. "That'll be for you
guys to decide, though I'd say whoever
matches those prints will face tough
questions. Anyway, they're being checked
against records, and we'll have an ID, if
any, tomorrow. Matching the blood with
the victim's will take another day. And
there's something else. Over here."

The ID chief led the way, stopping at a
polished oak cabinet in the exercise
area. "This was locked; we found some
keys in a desk drawer." Opening the
cabinet, he revealed an interior lined
with red felt and containing firearms. A
Browning automatic shotgun, a Winchester
semiautomatic deer rifle, and a Grossman
.22 automatic rifle were all upright and
held in place by metal clips. Alongside,
resting on several metal hooks. was a
Glock 9mm automatic pistol. Beyond it
were a few more empty hooks, shaped to
contain another handgun.

The cabinet had several interior
drawers. Verona opened two and announced'
"It's obvious that Maddox-Davanal

liked to shoot, and there's plenty
of ammunition here for

the shotgun, both rifles, and the Glock
handgun, which also
has a fully loaded clip. As well,
there's a box of .357
Magnum hollow-points."

"Bullets for which there's no handgun.''
Ainslie said.

"Right. Obviously a handgun's missing,
and it could have been a .357 Magnum
pistol."

Ainslie considered. "Chances are
Maddox-Davanal had permits for his guns.
Has anyone checked?"

"Not yet," Verona said.

"Let's do it." Using his police radio,
Ainslie placed a phone call to the
Homicide offices. Sergeant Pablo Greene .
answered.

344 Arthur Halley

"Pablo, will you do me a favor and
go to a computer?" Ainslie asked. "I
need a check of Dade County Firearms
Registration." A few minutes' pause,
then, "The name's Maddox-Davanal,
first name Byron . . . Yeah, we're
still at the house . . . We'd like
to see if anything's registered to
him."

While waiting, Ainslie asked
Verona, "Were any bullets found here
at the scene?"

The ID chief nodded. "Yes, one. It
was against the baseboard behind the
desk, and must have gone through the
victim's head, hit the wall, then
fell. It was pretty distorted and we
won't be sure until the lab's
examined it, but it might have come
from a .357 round."

Ainslie spoke into his radio.
"Okay, Pablo, go ahead." He listened
while making notes. "Got it! . . .
Yeah . . . It fits . . . We have
that one, too . . . And that . . .
Ah! Give me that again . . . Yes, I
have it now . . . And that's every-
thing, right? . . . Thanks, Pablo."

Putting away the radio, he told
the others, "All these guns are
registered to Maddox-Davanal. He
also registered a Smith & Wesson
.357. Magnum revolver, which isn't
here."

The four men stood thoughtfully,
silent, weighing the implications.

"Are you guys having the same
feeling I am," Garcia said, "that if
the missing gun was the murder
weapon, this is starting to look
like an inside job?"

"It's possible," Jorge agreed.
"Except whoever made those
footprints outside, then forced open
the French doors, could have got the
gun before hiding."

"But how'd they know the gun was
there, and where the keys were
kept?" Garcia asked.

"Maddox-Davanal could have had
friends who knew all that," Ainslie
said. "Gun owners are big talkers,
and they

DETECTIVE 345

like to show their guns off. Another
thing Julio says the Glock pistol
has a loaded clip, so the Smith &
Wesson .357 was probably loaded,
too."

"And ready to shoot," Garcia added.

"I'm wondering about 'inside,' too,
Jose," Ainslie said, "though let's
not lock our minds up yet."

"There's one thing we need," Julio
Verona told the others. "We've got a
fair number of fingerprints from
this room, and we should get
voluntary prints from any of the
house people who normally come
here."

"I'll arrange that," Jorge Rodriguez
said.

"Be sure you include Holdsworth,"
Ainslie told him. "And I guess Mrs.
Davanal."

That night and the next morning, the
"Super-Rich-Davanals' Bloody
Murder," as one newspaper headline
described it, was the dominant story
carried by local TV, press, and
radio, and there was national
coverage, too. Most reports quoted
an interview with Felicia Maddox-
Davanal on the Davanals' own
WBEQ-TV, where she referred to "the
savage murder of my husband." Asked
if she knew whether police had any
suspect in mind, she had answered,
"I'm not sure they have anything in
their minds. They seem totally
lost." She promised that a reward
would be posted by the family for
information leading to the arrest
and conviction of Byron
Maddox-Davanal's killer, after as
she put it "my father returns from
Italy, where he is still confined to
his hotel in a state of shock."

An AP reporter in Milan, however,
who had tried unsuccessfully to
interview Theodore Davanal the day
after his son-in-law's death,
reported that Theodore and Eugenia
were observed lunching at the
exclusive Ristorante

346 Arthur Halley

L'Albereta di Gualtiero Marchesi and, in
the presence of friends, were laughing
uproariously.

Meanwhile, at the Brickell Avenue house,
Miami Homicide continued its
investigation. During the second day,
Malcolm Ainslie, Jorge Rodriguez, and
Jose Garcia met at midmorning in the
exercise room and study.

Jorge reported that two housemaids and
a male houseman had agreed to voluntary
fingerprinting. "But when I asked Mrs.
Davanal, she said absolutely no; she
wasn't going to be fingerprinted in her
own home." The butler, Holdsworth, had
also refused.

"That's their privilege," Ainslie mused.
"Though I wanted Holdsworth's prints."

"I can try for them without his knowing,"
Jorge sug

gested. Police detectives often
obtained fingerprints sur- fir

reptitiously, though officially the
practice was frowned on.

"Too risky in this house." Then Ainslie
asked Garcia, "That old British police
record of Holdsworth's did you say he was
convicted?"

"Pleaded guilty, got probation."

"Then they'll have his prints on record."

Garcia said doubtfully, "After
thirty-three years?"

"The Brits are thorough; they'll have
them. So call your U.S. Immigration
contact again and have them get those old
prints sent here by computer, fast."

"I'll do it now." Garcia nodded eagerly
and went to a corner of the room and used
his police radio.

Julio Verona, who had arrived a few
minutes earlier, said, "Let's hope you
find something. Those prints from the
clock were a dead end. Nothing comparable
either in our records or the FBI's. Oh,
and by the way, Dr. Sanchez would like to
talk to one of you two at the morgue."

Jorge glanced at Ainslie, who said,
"We'll go together."

DETECTIVE 347

"There's something funny about this
Maddox-Davanal death, something that
doesn't fit." Sandra Sanchez sat be-
hind a desk in her second-floor
office at the Dade County morgue on
Northwest Tenth Avenue. Files and
papers were spread around. The ME
was holding some handwritten notes.

"Doesn't fit in what way, Doctor?"
Jorge asked.

Sanchez hesitated, then said, "The
murder scenario I heard all of you
discussing. Not my business, really.
All I'm supposed to do is give you
the cause of death . . ."

"You do a lot more than that, and
we all know it," Ainslie assured
her.

"Well, it's the bullet trajectory,
Malcolm difficult to follow exactly
because so much of the head was
blown away. But from what remains,
and after X-rays, the bullet appears
to have entered the dead man's right
cheek, gone upward through his right
eye into the brain, then out through
the top of the head."

"Sounds enough to kill him," Jorge
said, "so what's wrong?"

"What's wrong is that for someone
to dispatch him that way, it had to
be at extremely close range, with
the gun held practically under his
nose, then fired."

Jorge asked, "Couldn't the whole
thing have been so fast and
unexpected that the victim never
knew what was happening?''

"Yes, it could, though that's hard
to buy. And it leaves two questions:
First, why would a shooter take a
chance he didn't have to by getting
that close to an athletic guy like
Davanal? Second, fast or not, the
victim would have resisted
instinctively, even put up a fight,
and there's no evidence of it."

34~3 Arthur Halley

Ainslie reminded Jorge, "When we
first viewed the body, you pointed
out there was no sign of
resistance." He asked Sanchez, "So
what else is on your mind? I know
there's something."

"Yes, and it's a simple question.
Have you considered the possibility
of suicide?"

Ainslie was silent, then said
slowly, "No, we haven't."

"With plenty of reason," Jorge
broke in. "There's strong evidence
of forced entry. A patio door was
jimmied, there were shoe prints
outside, and no gun, which there'd
have to have been for suicide . . ."

"Detective," Sanchez shot back,
"there is nothing wrong with my
hearing, and I was at the death
scene for an hour, listening as I
said at the beginning."

Jorge flushed. "Sorry, Doctor;
I'll think about your question.
There's one thing, though with a
self-inflicted gunshot wound there's
always a powder burn on the victim's
hand. Was one discovered?"

"The answer's no," Sanchez
replied, "even though both hands
were checked before autopsy. But
anyone who knows about guns can wash
a powder burn off. Which brings up
another question for you to
consider, Malcolm: Is it possible
that all that other evidence could
be faked?"

"Yes, it is possible,'' Ainslie
answered, "and in view of what
you've told us, we'll take a fresh
look."

"Good." Sanchez nodded her
approval. "Meanwhile I'm labeling
the death 'unclassified.' "

g

Among several messages awaiting
Malcolm Ainslie on his return to
Homicide was one from Beth Embry.
She hadn't left a name, but he
recognized the number and called at
once.

"I've been canvassing some of my
old connections," she announced
without preamble. "And I've learned
two things about Byron
Maddox-Davanal that may interest
you."

"You're a love, Beth. What have you
got?"

"The guy was in deep money
trouble, and I do mean deep. Also,
he'd got a young girl pregnant and
her lawyer was coming after Byron
for support and, failing him, the
Davanal family."

Informational shocks, Ainslie
thought, were arriving like
beach-pounding waves. "Deep trouble
sounds right," he answered. "And
there's something you said the last
time we talked that it wouldn't
surprise you if Byron had killed
himself."

"Do things look that way?" Beth
sounded startled.

"It's a possibility, though no
more at the moment. Tell me about
the money trouble."

"Gambling debts. Byron owed the
Miami mob. Big.

350 Arthur Halley

More than two million dollars. They
were threatening his life, also
threatened to go to Theodore
Davanal."