Detective (57 page)

DETECTIVE 479

Now Jensen went on to discuss the
needed similarity to two other
recent murder scenes and explained
why. "It's to your advantage also,"
he pointed out, and Virgilio nodded
agreement. Jensen described the
required features: a dead animal
must be left, perhaps a rabbit; a
radio had to be playing loud hard
rock the local station HOT 105 . . .
"Know it," Virgilio interjected . .
. Positively no fingerprints . . .
Virgilio nodded forcefully . . . All
money on or near the victims to be
taken, but jewelry not touched. . .
There, too, a gesture of agreement.
. . A knife to do the killing. "A
bowie knife, do you understand? Can
you get one?" . . . Virgilio: "Ya."
. . . Jensen repeated Cynthia's
report of the earlier murder
scenes the victims bound, gagged,
facing each other, and the ugly
brutality . . . While he could not
be certain in the car's
semidarkness, at that point Jensen
believed Virgilio smiled.

"That's a lot to remember. Do you
have it all?"

The Colombian touched his forehead
with a finger. "Okay, is all here."

Next they discussed a date, Jensen
remembering Cynthia's insistence
that it should be as close as
possible to mid-August.

"I go away, then come,'' Virgilio
said, and Jensen suspected he would
take his sixty thousand dollars'
down payment to deposit in Colombia.

Finally they agreed on August 17.

Later, as they neared Jensen's
apartment, Virgilio repeated the
substance of his warning the night
of the wheelchair murder. "Hey. You
double-cross me, I fuckin' kill
you."

"Virgilio, I would never, ever,
double-cross you," Jensen said, and
meant it. At the same time he
resolved to stay well clear of
Virgilio after the Ernst murders. He
was

480 Arthur Halley

capable of killing anyone,
including Jensen, if he thought it
necessary to cover his own tracks.

That same evening, Jensen phoned
Cynthia and, without identifying
himself, said only, "The date is
August twentysecond."

Mentally she subtracted five,
then answered, "I understand
fully,'' and hung up.

6

Cynthia had been in Los Angeles for
eight days when she learned of her
parents' violent deaths. During that
time she felt as if she were living
two lives, one as she waited
tensely, suspended in time, the
other routine, normal, even prosaic.

Ostensibly she had come to L.A. to
give a series of lectures to a
segment of the L.A. Police
Department about Miami's experience
with police community relations
something she had done successfully
for other forces. She also planned
to spend a few vacation days with an
old friend from her Pine Crest
School years, Paige Burdelon, now a
Universal Pictures vice-president,
living in Brentwood.

On June 27, after Cynthia had
received the message from Patrick
Jensen that the long-awaited date
was August 17, she made arrangements
to fly from Florida to California on
August 10. Her trip and the planned
lectures were reported by the Miami
Herald in Joan Fleischman's widely
read "Talk of Our Town" column the
result of a friendly phone call from
Cynthia the day before she left.
Similarly, the Los Angeles Times
made the same mention the result of
a suggestion by Cynthia to her West
Coast

482 Arthur Halley

counterpart, Commander Winslow
McGowan. "It's not that I want
publicity," she assured him, "but
the more the public realizes that
their police are concerned about the
community, the better you and I can
do our jobs.'' The commander had
agreed; thus her absence east, and
presence west, were very much on
record.

Paige Burdelon was delighted to
learn of Cynthia's plans. "You have
to stay with me," she enthused over
the phone. "Since Biffy and I split,
I rattle around this big condo like
a stranger in my own home. Come on,
Cyn, we'll have a blast, I promise."

Cynthia accepted happily, and went
directly to Paige's from LAX
airport.

The police department lecture
series, six hour-long sessions
scheduled over two weeks, began the
day after Cynthia's arrival. Her
audience, gathered in a large
conference room at the LAPD
headquarters, comprised eighty
selected officers from the
department's eighteen divisions, all
of varying ranks and ethnicity, with
about two thirds in uniform, the
remainder in plain clothes.
Currently the LAPD was attempting to
convert a single area-wide force,
for many years directed despotically
from the top, into a group of
localized forces with friendly
community liaisons. At the same time
the department hoped to put behind
it a painful era symbolized by a
bellicose ex-chief, Darryl Gates,
the Rodney King travesty, and the
Simpson debacle. M1ami's comparable
transformation, which began much
earlier and with considerable
success, was respected nationwide as
a prototype worth copying.

As Cynthia expressed it to her
audience in an opening statement,
"Just as in medicine, where the
emphasis nowadays is on prevention,
so should it be in police work.

DETECTIVE 483

That's why the job of community
relations has become so important.
On the face of it, our job is
simple: we must teach people to take
precautions that decrease their
chances of becoming victims of
crime; at the same time we have to
keep our citizens, especially kids,
from being drawn into r crime. We
haven't always done that, which is
why critics believe that our bulging
prison populations are not a sign of
our success, but a symptom of our
failure."

The audience stirred; some even
groaned at the last remark. Cynthia
added crisply, "I am not here to
placate you, but to make you think."

She was also thinking
herself somehow with her mind
divided . . . the interminable wait.
. . lying awake nights, imagining
that man entering Bay Point . . .
finding her parents . . .

She pushed those thoughts away,
going on to describe Miami's
Community Relations programs,
ranging from the CATE (Crimes
Against The Elderly) Detail, through
the Gang Detail helping kids, so
they didn't join one; neighborhood
crime watches; a Missing
Persons/Juvenile Detail among the
busiest functions; a Crime
Prevention Detail, and a dozen more.

"Of course," Cynthia added, "while
community relations is a current hot
button in police work, we also let
the public know that for those who
do insist on committing burglary,
rape, arson, homicide, we're skill
in the business of solving
crimes with sharper investigative
tools and tougher penalties."

The remark drew laughter and
approving nods.

Despite the initial skepticism,
Cynthia's speech was applauded
loudly at the end, followed by many
questions so many that her first
lecture ran half an hour overtime.

As the group was filing out, one of
the older officers, a heavily built
uniformed commander with a lined
face and

484 Arthur Halley

graying hair, stopped beside her.
"You're a determined lady," he said
in a gravelly voice. "I'm one of the
old guard, soon be out to pasture.
Not saying I agree with your stuff;
some I don't. But like you said,
I'll go home and think."

Cynthia smiled; her own rank as
major equaled an LAPD commander.
"Thank you for that. Who could ask
more?''

Winslow McGowan, a tall, reedy man
about Cynthia's age, joined her and
said, "Congratulations, it went
well." He waited until they were
alone, then added hesitantly,
"Listen, Cynthia, it's none of my
business, but ever since you
arrived, you've seemed a bit
distracted. Is everything okay, or
have I messed up somehow with the
arrangements?"

Cynthia was startled; until this
moment she was convinced she had
kept all private thoughts to
herself. But McGowan was clearly a
perceptive man.

"All the arrangements are fine,"
she assured him. "Absolutely no
problems." But, she decided, she
must be more careful.

Cynthia's concern with what was soon
to occur three thousand miles away
was eased by the whirlwind of
activity Paige had organized. On
their first morning together, Cyn-
thia drove with Paige to work in her
black Saab convertible, heading to
one of the Universal sound stages,
where a police thriller was being
shot. They were cruising north on
Interstate 405, the wind blowing
through their hair.

"Just like Thelma and Louise,"
Paige laughed. She was tall and
slim, with shoulder-length blond
hair and blue eyes. "A generic L.A.
girl" was the way she described
herself.

DETECTIVE 485

"What's the movie we're going to
see being filmed?" Cynthia asked.

"Dark Justice. It's a great story!
A seven-year-old girl is murdered
one night in an alley near the
police station. The investigating
detective is a good cop intelligent,
a family man but the more that's
uncovered, the more the evidence
points to him."

"The detective killed the kid?"

"That's how it was written. The guy
has acute schizophrenia, so he
doesn't know he did it."

Cynthia laughed. "You have to be
kidding.''

"NO, really; it's fascinating. We
have a psychiatrist on call to make
sure our kooky bits are right."

"So what happens?"

"Tell you the truth, I don't know.
The writers were told to change the
ending after we landed Max Cormick
for the role. His agent said it
would ruin his career to play the
murderer of a little kid. So I think
we're going to make his partner the
killer now."

"His partner? That's a bit
predictable."

"You think so?" Paige sounded
concerned.

"Oh, for sure. What about the
detective's wife?"

"The wife! Of course. Wait a
second." Excitedly, Paige picked up
the car phone and hammered out a
number. "Michael, listen. I'm here
with an old friend who's a Miami
cop. She thinks Suzanne should be
the murderer."

A pause. "Hold on . . . Cyn, why
would his wife be the murderer?"

Cynthia shrugged. "Maybe she's in
love with someone else and wants her
husband trashed. So instead of doing
it herself, she sets him up so he'll
be jailed for life or die in the gas
chamber."

"Michael, did you hear that? . . .
Okay, think about it."

Paige hung up the phone and smiled.
"NOW I can take

486 Arthur Halley

you to the best restaurants in
town courtesy of the studio."

"What for'?"

"You're a story consultant."

Paige drove into the back lot of
Universal Studios, stopping outside
one of the large white sound stages.
Inside, the cavernous space buzzed
with activity. Cynthia looked around
in amazement. It was as if a genuine
detective office had been dropped
into the middle of the building,
then surrounded with lights,
scaffolding, cameras, and a regiment
of people.

She leaned into Paige's shoulders
and whispered, "Do I get to meet Max
Cormick?"

"Come." Paige led the way to a
group of chairs, where the
celebrated star was waiting for his
next take. He was tall and
confident, about forty, with
slightly gray hair and hazel eyes.

"Max, good morning," Paige said.
"I'd like you to meet Major Cynthia
Ernst. She's from the Miami Police
Department. "

He looked confused. "We have a cop
from Miami in this?"

"No, no." Cynthia smiled. "I'm not
an actress."

"Oh, sorry. It's just that . . .
well, you look more like an actress
than a cop."

"From all I hear, I'd make more
money if I were."

The actor nodded with some
embarrassment. "Yeah. Stupid, isn't
it?"

"Well, maybe not. I tried acting
once in school and found it tough.
I was so busy trying to understand
the role that it never seemed real."

Max Cormick took her arm and led her
toward a table

DETECTIVE 487

of food. "Major, as an actor you
don't think about acting ever. If you
do, it shows. An actor only thinks
about being himself the new self he's
just become in a world that's now
his. New life, family,
job everything!"

Cynthia nodded, apparently with
polite interest. In fact, she had
memorized every word.

August 18. Six days later.

The door chime in Paige's
condominium sounded at 6:50 A.M. After a
few seconds it sounded again.

Cynthia, still in bed, though
awake, heard the first chime, then,
after the second, Paige's muffled
voice protesting, "Who the hell . .
. at this hour . . ." followed by the
sound of her adjoining bedroom door
opening. Before she could reach the
outer door, the chime sounded a third
time.

"All right, all right! I'm coming!"
Paige called out with irritation.

By now Cynthia could feel her pulse
quickening, but she lay back calmly,
letting what was about to happen take
whatever form it would.

At the main doorway, Paige peered
through a peephole and saw a police
uniform. She released two locks and
a chain on the door, then opened it.

"I'm Winslow McGowan, ma'am." The
voice was quiet and cultured. "I've
been working with Major Ernst, who I
believe is staying with you."

"Yes, she is. Is something wrong?"

"I'm sorry to disturb you so early,
but I need to see her."

"Come in, sir."

Paige called out, "Cyn, are you up?
You have a visitor."

488 Arthur Halley

Taking her time, Cynthia pulled on
a robe and went out. Smiling
brightly, she greeted McGowan.
"Hello, Winslow. What brings you
here so early?"

Instead of answering, he asked
Paige, "Is there somewhere Cynthia
and I can talk quietly?"