Detective

by Arthur Hailey

  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.

  “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.

  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 as possible. The room was little more than a cupboard with a table, two chairs, and a phone, but it would do.

  “Well go down to Property,” he told her, “and I’ll authorize you to remove the Ernst boxes as you’re ready for them. The whole thing shouldn’t take more than a few days.”

  A prediction that, as it turned out, was wholly wrong.

  At the end of two weeks, with some impatience, Ainslie went to visit Ruby for the third time in her temporary quarters. As on the two previous visits, he found her surrounded by piles of paper, much of it spread around the floor.

  On the last occasion she had told him, “I don’t believe either of the Ernsts could bear to throw away any piece of paper. They squirreled everything—letters, bills, handwritten reminder notes, news clippings, canceled checks, invitations—you name it—and most of it’s here.”

  Ainslie had said then, “I’ve talked with Hank Brewmaster, who had the case at the beginning. The problem was, there was an enormous quantity of papers in the house—box after box, stored in almost every room. Well, because we were so swamped at the time, no one could be spared to go through everything, though it had to be preserved in case there was important evidence. So what happened is all that stuff was scooped up from the Ernsts’ house, then afterward no one got around to going through it.”

  Today, Ruby had a tattered exercise book open in front of her and was making notes on a pad alongside it.

  Gesturing to an open cardboard carton, he asked, “Is it more of the same?”

  “No,” Ruby said, “I may have found something interesting.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Mrs. Ernst was the one who accumulated the most paper, and a lot is in her handwriting—spidery and hard to read. All innocuous, I thought, until two days ago, when I found what’s turned out to be a diary. She wrote it in exercise books—lots of them, going back years.”

  “How many?”

  “Could be twenty, thirty, maybe more.” Ruby motioned to the cardboard carton. “This was full of them. My guess is, there’ll be more in others.”

  “What do they say?”

  “Well, that’s a problem. Apart from the difficult handwriting, it’s in a kind of code—a personal shorthand, you could call it—for privacy I suppose, especially from her husband; she must have concealed her diary from him over all those years. If anyone’s patient enough, though, they can learn to read it.”

  Ruby pointed to the tattered pages in front of her. “For example, instead of using names, she uses numbers. After a while I realized ‘5’ stood for herself and ‘7’ for her husband. Then I caught on—‘E,’ for ‘Eleanor,’ is the fifth letter of the alphabet; ‘G,’ for ‘Gustav,’ the seventh. A simple code. Two numbers with a hyphen between is two names. I figured that ‘4–18-23’ meant ‘Dr. W.’—whoever he is, or was. And she compresses words, skips the vowels mostly. I’m getting the hang of it, but wading through all these will take time.”

  He must make a judgment, Ainslie knew. Was it worth keeping Ruby on this tedious search, which could drag on much longer and most likely produce nothing? Other matters in Homicide were, as usual, pressing. He asked, “Is there anything at all you can tell me? Anything important?”

  Ruby considered. “Okay, maybe there is, and I guess I was holding back, wanting to have more.” Her voice took on an edge. “Try this for size. What the diaries show already is that our late, high and mighty City Commissioner Gustav Ernst was a wife-beater of the worst kind. He beat his wife from the beginning of their marriage, sending her to the hospital at least once. She kept quiet because she was ashamed and scared, and thought no one would believe her, which is what her bastard of a husband told her. In the end all she could do was transfer the pain and torment—in her lonely private code—to these miserable pages. It’s all in here!”

  Abruptly, Ruby flushed. “Oh fuck! I hate this shit.” Impulsively she seized one of the exercise books and flung it wildly across the tiny room.

  After a pause, Ainslie retrieved the book and returned it to the table. “She was probably right; she might not have been believe
d, especially all those years ago, when no one ever talked about battered wives; people didn’t want to know. Do you believe it all?”

  “Absolutely.” Ruby was calm again. “There’s too much detail to have invented it, and every bit rings true. Maybe you should read some.”

  “I will later,” Ainslie said, confident of Ruby’s judgment.

  She looked over at the exercise-book diary and added thoughtfully, “I think Mrs. Ernst knew, perhaps even hoped, that what she was writing would be read someday.”

  “Have you come across any reference to—” Ainslie stopped, realizing the question was unneeded. If the answer was yes, Ruby would have told him.

  “You’re wondering about Cynthia, aren’t you?”

  He nodded without speaking.

  “I’m wondering, too, but there hasn’t been anything yet. The books I’ve had are from the Ernsts’ early marriage years; so far, Cynthia isn’t born. When she is, she’ll be in there as ‘3.’”

  Their eyes met directly.

  “Keep going,” Ainslie said. “Take whatever time you need, and call me when there’s something I should see.” He tried to dismiss that gnawing apprehension, but did not succeed.

  It was almost two more weeks before Ruby Bowe telephoned again. “Can you come down? I have some things to show you.”

  “What I’ve found,” Ruby said, “changes a lot of things, though I’m not sure how.”

  Once more they were in the tiny, windowless room, still crammed with papers. Ruby sat at her small table.

  “Let’s get on with it,” he said, aware of having waited long enough.

  “Cynthia has come on the scene, and within a week of her being born, Mrs. Ernst found her husband playing with the baby—sexually. Here’s what she wrote.” Ruby pushed an open exercise book across the table and pointed partially down a page. Peering closely, Ainslie saw:

  Fnd 7 tdy tchng 3, cd only b sxl. He had rmvd hr diapr & ws peerng at hr. Thn nt knwng I hd sn hm, he bnt dwn & dd smthng unspkbl. Ws so dsgstd & fraid for 3. Is ths prvt, hr fthr, wht sh mst fce thru chldhd? Tld hm ddnt cre whtvr he dz to me, bt mst nvr do tht agn to 3, & if he dd wd cll chld prtctn ppl nd he wd go to jl. He ddnt sm shmd bt prmsd nt to do it ny mre. Nt sre if blu hm, knw hs dpravd. Cn I prtct 3? Agn nt sre.

  “Read it to me,” he said. “I get the idea, but you’ll be faster.”

  Ruby read aloud:

  “‘Found Gustav today touching Cynthia, it could only be sexually. He had removed her diaper and was peering at her. Then, not knowing I had seen him, he bent down and did something unspeakable. Was so disgusted and afraid for Cynthia. Is this pervert, her father, what she must face through childhood? Told him I didn’t care whatever he does to me, but he must never do that again to Cynthia, and if he did would call child protection people and he would go to jail. He didn’t seem ashamed but promised not to do it any more. Not sure if believe him, know he’s depraved. Can I protect Cynthia? Again not sure.’”

  Without waiting for a reaction, Ruby said. “There are bits and pieces like that over the next two years, and despite Mrs. Ernst’s threat, it’s clear she did nothing. Then after a year and a half, there’s this.” Reaching for another exercise book, she pointed to a passage:

  Hv wrnd 7 so mny tms bt stll he gs on, smtms hrtng 3 so sh crs out. Whn I trd to rgu wth hm he sd, “Its nthng. Jst a Ittl fectshn frm hr dad.” Tld him …

  With a gesture, Ainslie indicated that Ruby should read it. She did so.

  “‘Have warned Gustav so many times but still he goes on, sometimes hurting Cynthia so she cries out. When I tried to argue with him he said, “It’s nothing. Just a little affection from her dad.” Told him, “No, it’s sick. She hates it and she hates you. She’s afraid.” Now every time Gustav comes near Cynthia she cries and curls up defensively, shrinking away. I keep threatening to call someone, child welfare people or police or even our own Dr. W., and Gustav laughs, knowing when it comes right down to it I can’t, and that’s the truth. The shame and disgrace would be too awful. How could I face people afterward? Can’t even speak of this to anyone, not even for Cynthia’s sake. I have had to bear this burden alone and so will Cynthia.’”

  “Does this shock you?” Ruby asked.

  “After nine years in Homicide nothing shocks me, but I’m worried about what’s to come. There is more—right?”

  “Lots. Too much to cover now, so I’ll skip ahead and we can come back to the other stuff later.” She consulted notes. “Cruelty came next. When Cynthia was three, Gustav began beating her—‘slapping her hard for trivial reasons or sometimes for no reason at all,’ the diary says. He hated her crying, and once, as ‘punishment,’ put her legs in steaming hot water. Mrs. Ernst took Cynthia to a hospital, reporting the burn as an accident. She says in her notes that she knows she was not believed, but nothing happened.

  “Then, when Cynthia was eight, Gustav had sex with her for the first of many times. After that, Cynthia shrank from anyone who tried to touch her, including her mother, showing terror at the idea of being touched.” Ruby’s voice faltered. She drank water from a glass and pointed to a pile of exercise books. “It’s all in there.”

  Ainslie asked, “Do you want a break?”

  “I think so, yes.” Ruby went to the door, murmuring as she left, “I’ll be back soon.”

  Left alone, Ainslie found his thoughts were in tumult. He had not erased from memory the fervent excitement of his affair with Cynthia, nor ever would. Despite her bitterness at his decision to end it, and afterward her deliberate sabotage of his own career, he still cared about Cynthia and would never wish to harm her in return. But now, with this new knowledge, his thoughts and pity went out to her in waves. How could supposedly civilized parents abuse and violate their own child—the father with degraded lust, the mother so spineless that she took no action whatever to aid her daughter?

  The door opened quietly and Ruby slipped in. He asked, “Do you feel like going on?”

  “Yes, I want to finish, then maybe I’ll go and get drunk tonight and put this out of mind.”

  But she wouldn’t, he knew. Ruby, because of her father’s tragic shooting death by a fifteen-year-old junkie, strictly abstained from all drugs and alcohol. This experience would not change that.

  “The inevitable happened when Cynthia was twelve,” she continued, returning to her notes. “She got pregnant by her father. Let me read you what Mrs. Ernst wrote.”

  This time Ruby did not show the diary version in code, but read directly from her transcribed notes.

  “‘In this terrible, shameful situation, arrangements have been made. With the help of Gustav’s lawyer, L.M., Cynthia was spirited out of town to Pensacola under another name and to a discreet hospital where L.M. has connections. Medical advice is she must have the child, pregnancy too far advanced for anything else. She will stay in Pensacola until it happens. L.M. also arranging to have baby immediately adopted; I told him we don’t care how, where, or to whom, as long as all is kept quiet and never traceable. Cynthia will not see the child or hear of it again, and neither will we. Thank goodness!

  “‘Something good may even come out of this. Before L.M. agreed to handle the case, he gave the biggest dressing-down to Gustav I ever heard. He said Gustav sickened him and used words I won’t repeat. Also he gave an ultimatum: Unless Gustav gives up for all time his abuse of Cynthia, L.M. will inform the authorities of his actions and Gustav will go to prison for a long time. L.M. said he really meant it and, if he had to do it, “the hell with client privilege.” Gustav was truly frightened.’

  “Some time after that there’s a reference to Cynthia’s baby being born,” Ruby said. “No other information, not even the child’s sex. Then Cynthia came home and, soon after, there was this in the diary:

  “‘Despite all our precautions, somehow something must have leaked. A child welfare person came to see me. From her questions I could tell she didn’t know everything, but did have information that Cynthia had a child at age twelve. W
as no point in denying that, so I said yes she had, but about the rest I lied. I said we had no idea who the father was, though Gustav and I had been concerned for some time about Cynthia mixing with undesirable boys. From now on we would be more strict. Am not sure she believed me altogether, but there’s nothing she can do to disprove what I said. Those people are such busybodies!

  “‘Just as the woman left, I discovered Cynthia had been listening. We didn’t say anything to each other, but Cynthia had a fierce look. I think she hates me.’”

  Ainslie said nothing, his thoughts too complex to express. His disgust was overwhelming, particularly that neither Gustav nor Eleanor Ernst had given the slightest thought to the welfare of the newborn child—her grandson or granddaughter, his son or daughter; apparently neither had cared which.

  “I skipped ahead,” Ruby continued, “reading just parts of the diary in the years when Cynthia was growing up. There’s been no time to read it all; maybe no one ever will. But the picture is that Gustav Ernst stopped molesting Cynthia and began trying to help her, hoping—according to the diary—she’d ‘forgive and forget.’ He gave her lots of money—and he had plenty. It was all still happening when he was a city commissioner and Cynthia joined the Miami Police. He used his influence to put pressure on the PD, first to get her into Homicide, then to have her promoted fast.”

  “Cynthia was good at her job,” Ainslie said. “She’d probably have gone ahead anyway.”

  Ruby shrugged. “Mrs. Ernst thought it helped, though she didn’t believe Cynthia would ever be grateful for anything she and Gustav did. Here’s something Mrs. Ernst wrote four years ago:

  “‘Gustav is living in a fool’s world. He thinks that all is well between the two of us and Cynthia, that the past has been put behind and left there, and that Cynthia cares about us now. What nonsense! Cynthia doesn’t love us. Why should she? We never gave her reason to. Now, looking back, I wish I had done some things differently. But it’s too late. All too late.’