Detective (47 page)

"Did you know her?"

"Not before she disappeared. But
afterward I learned so much about
her she was a nice kid, everybody
said so I have a feeling I really
did." Yanis glanced at Ruby. "You
think I'm spooked, don't you? That
maybe I've been in Homicide too
long?"

"Absolutely not," she told him.
"Though I think you're hard on
yourself."

"Maybe so. But I'll still go to the
limit, along with you, to learn what
happened to the Ikeis."

392 Arthur Halley

The preliminary arrangements took
two full days.

The assistant state attorney
prepared an affidavit and a judicial
order allowing the police to open
two graves, which Detective Yanis
and Ruby Bowe took for a judge to
sign.

Initially the judge, who clearly
knew Yanis well, demurred at the
notion of disturbing two graves,
asking, "Why don't I authorize just
one, Sandy? Then, if you don't find
what you want there, I'll consider
a second order."

The veteran detective pleaded
persuasively, "I promise, Judge,
that if we find what we're looking
for at the first grave, we won't go
near the second. But if we do have
to search the second, having your
okay in advance will save the city
a lot of money not to mention your
own valuable time."

"Your bullshit, I see, is as deep
as ever," the judge commented. He
turned from Yanis to Ruby. "Pardon
my language, Detective, but what's
your thinking on this?"

"Sometimes, Your Honor, I think
bullshit makes sense."

"I'm an old fox who's outfoxed,"
the judge remarked as he scribbled
a signature.

The workforce that assembled at 7:00
A.M. the next day at Marti Cemetery
comprised four detectives Yanis,
Jasmund, Bowe, and an Andy Vosko,
borrowed from Robbery and three
uniform officers from the ID
Department. The City Real Estate
Division's Ralph Medina also ar-
rived "Just to keep an eye on my
turf," he commented and a police
photographer was taking pictures of
the two designated graves.

Ample equipment had been stockpiled,
too. There were

DETECTIVE 393

wooden boards, an assortment of
spades and hand trowels, coils of
light rope, two sifting screens, and
the ID crew had brought technical
gear in boxes and leather cases. Also
lined up were a dozen gallon-size
bottles of drinking water. "By the
end of this day we'll have finished
those," Yanis declared. "It's gonna
be a hot one." Although it was still
officially winter, the sky was clear,
the sun already climbing, the
humidity high.

As instructed, everyone had dressed
in old clothes, mainly jumpsuits and
rubber boots, and had brought gloves.
Ruby had borrowed baggy jeans from
Shirley Jasmund, though they were
pinching Ruby at her waistline and
crotch.

The first grave to be opened was
the older of the two, the burial
place of a Eustace Maldon Doyle, who,
according to a crumbling but still
readable gravestone, died in 1903.
"Hey, that's the year the Wright
brothers flew the first airplane,"
someone said.

"It's the oldest part of the
cemetery," Yanis acknowledged. "And
closest to the house where the Ikeis
were killed."

The first procedure, supervised by
the ID sergeant, was to nail four
boards together, forming a
rectangular enclosure six feet by
four. This was lowered over the grave
and marked the limit of the dig.
Next, several lengths of light rope
were secured on top of the wooden
frame by the ID crew, creating a
grid a total of twenty-four
twelve-inch squares. The purpose was
to explore one square at a time, and
also to keep a record of exactly
where anything was found.

But would anything be found, Ruby
Bowe wondered. Despite the activity,
since arriving here today her doubts
had grown. The name on this grave,
she was reminded, was not what Elroy
Doll had claimed it to be. In any
case

394 Arthur Halley

he was a notorious liar, so was Doil
ever here at all? Her thoughts were
interrupted by the ID sergeant's
voice.

"Your turn now, Sandy," he told
Yanis. "We're the gurus here. You
guys are the chain gang."

"At your service, bossman." Taking
a spade himself, Yanis instructed
the other detectives, "Okay, let's
play tictac-toe," and began digging
carefully in one of the twelveinch
squares. The other three Tampa
detectives, along with Ruby,
followed suit, choosing squares some
distance from Yanis and each other.

"We'll go down six inches to
begin," Yanis ordered. "Then, if we
need to, another six."

The ground was hard, and only
small amounts of earth could be
lifted at one time. Gradually and
carefully the dirt was transferred
to a bucket, then as each bucket was
filled, its contents were shaken
into sifting screens.

The process was painstaking and
tedious, and after a while they were
all perspiring. At the end of an
hour only twelve squares had been
excavated to a six-inch depth, and,
following a brief water break, work
continued on the remaining twelve.
At the end of two hours only three
objects had been found an old
leather dog collar, a fivecent coin
dated 1921, and an empty bottle. The
dog collar and bottle were
discarded. The nickel, Yanis
announced amid mild amusement, would
go to the city treasury. Then they
all began to dig another six inches
down.

Finally, at the end of four hours
and no results, Yanis declared,
"That's it, everyone. Take a break
and a drink, then we'll work on the
other grave."

A chorus of weary sighs arose from
the crew as they contemplated
another four hours of back-straining
labor.

Work started on the second grave
at 11:40 A.M., with the temperature at
eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit. It
con

DETECTIVE 395

tinned for an hour and a half, then
Shirley Jasmund said quietly, "I
think I have something."

They all stopped and looked up.

With her spade, Detective Jasmund
gently probed downward in the square
she was working on and said, "It's
quite small. Solid, though. Maybe a
stone."

Ruby's heart sank. Whether a stone
or something else, it was clearly
not a knife.

"May we take over?" the ID sergeant
asked.

Jasmund shrugged as she handed him
her spade. "I do the work, you get
the glory."

''Them's the breaks, kid!" The
sergeant passed the spade clear of
the grave, then, kneeling, loosened
the object in the ground with his
fingers.

It was not a stone. Even with some
earth still clinging to it, the
object was revealed as a gold and
enamel brooch clearly valuable.

The ID sergeant dropped the
discovery into a plastic bag. "We'll
look at it more closely in the lab."

"Okay, gang," Yanis echoed. "Let's
keep digging."

Another hour and ten minutes passed
and, along with the time, Ruby's
spirits drooped. She had decided
that this portion of her quest was
close to ending in failure when
Robbery's Andy Vosko spoke up.

"Got something here," he said, then
added, "This time it's bigger."

Again everyone stopped work to
watch, and again the ID sergeant
moved in and took charge. Using a
hand trowel, he carefully loosened
the largish object and, as earth
fell away, the vague shape became
clear it was a knife. Producing
tongs, the sergeant used them to
hold the knife while one of the ID
crew women brushed the remaining
earth away.

"It's a bowie knife," Ruby said
breathlessly, viewing

396 Arthur Halley

the sturdy wooden handle and long
single-edged blade straight, then
curving concavely to a single sharp
cutting point. "It's what Doll used
in his killings." Her mood turned
upbeat and she felt gratitude to
Sandy Yanis for his persistence
despite Ruby's own doubts.

The knife was now in another
plastic bag. "We'll look at this in
the lab, too," the ID sergeant said.
"Nice going Sandy!"

"I suppose it isn't likely," Ruby
queried, "that you'll find
fingerprints or blood after all
these years."

"Highly unlikely," the sergeant
answered. "But..." He glanced toward
Yanis.

"Yesterday," Yanis said, "I went
to look at the Ikeis'
clothing nightclothes they were
wearing when they were killed; we
still have it all in Property. What
it showed was that they were stabbed
through their clothing, which means
there may be threads from the
clothing still on that knife. If the
threads and the clothing match..."
He raised his hands, leaving the
sentence unfinished.

Ruby said admiringly, "You just
taught me something I didn't know."

"He does that to all of us,"
Jasmund echoed. "All the time."

"So we found what you were looking
for," Andy Vosko said. "Do we quit
or go on?"

"We go on," Yanis answered, and so
they did for another hour, but
nothing more was found.

Ruby Bowe booked a late-evening
flight back to Miami. Shirley
Jasmund drove Ruby to the airport;
Sandy Yanis came along. As they
parted at the terminal entrance and
Ruby said good-bye, she reached out
impulsively and hugged them both.

12

"So what's the verdict?" Malcolm
Ainslie asked.

"The verdict," Ruby Bowe
responded, "is that when Elroy Doil
told you he murdered the Esperanzas
and the Ikeis, he was telling the
truth. Oh sure, a few details were
different, and he left out one item
entirely, but none of it changes the
basic facts." She paused. "Shall I
go back to the beginning?"

"Do that." It was the morning
following Ruby's return from Tampa,
and both were at Ainslie's desk in
Homicide.

Ainslie listened while Ruby
described what she had learned,
first at Metro-Dade, then Tampa. At
the end she added, "I had a phone
call at home early this morning. The
lab people in Tampa have identified
threads on the bowie knife that
match the Ikeis' clothing, so for
sure it's the knife that killed
them, just as Doil said. And the
brooch we found in the grave . . ."
Ruby consulted her notes. "It's been
identified as cloisonne very old,
very valuable, and Japanese. Sandy
Yanis figures the old lady had the
brooch somewhere close to her when
she was killed, and Elroy Doil
fancied it."

''Then got scared of having it
found on him, and left it in the
grave, too," Ainslie finished.

398 Arthur Halley

"Exactly. So Doil didn't tell the
complete truth after all."

"But what he did tell me has
checked out, and you've proved it to
be true.

"Oh, there's something else." From
among the papers Ruby had brought
back, she produced copies of the en-
velope that, according to Shirley
Jasmund, was found beside the Ikeis'
bodies the envelope with seven seals
in a circle on the rear and, inside,
a page from Revelation. Ainslie
studied both.

"It's chapter five," he said,
looking at the torn page. "Three
verses are marked." He read them
aloud:

" 'And I saw in the right hand of
him that sat on the throne a book
written within and on the backside,
sealed with seven seals.

" 'And I saw a strong angel
proclaiming with a loud voice, Who
is worthy to open the book, and to
loose the seals thereof?

"'And one of the elders saith unto
me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of
the tribe of Juda, the Root of
David, bath prevailed to open the
book, and to loose the seven seals
. . .'

"It's Doil's handiwork." Ainslie
remembered his conversation with
Father Kevin O'Brien of Gesu Church,
who had described Doil's obsession
at age twelve with as the priest
expressed it "God's wrath, pursuit,
revenge, and killing."

Ainslie added, "It matches
everything he did much later."

"Why that page beside the bodies?"
Ruby asked.

"Only Doll knew that. My guess is
he saw himself as the Lion of Judah,
which led him to the serial
killings." Ainslie shook his head
ruefully, then, touching the enve-
lope and the page, said, "If we'd
had this sooner, and

DETECTIVE 399

known about the Ikeis, we'd have
nailed Doll long before we did."

There was a silence which Ruby
broke. "You just said 'serial
killings.' How does the Ernst case
stand now?"

"It stands alone." In his mind
Ainslie could hear Elroy Doil's
desperate, frantic words: I done them
others, but I don't wanna die blamed
for what I never done.

"There were doubts that Doll was
telling the truth," Ainslie said.
"But now it looks very much as if he
was, so I guess the Ernst case will
be reopened."

"The Ernst case is reopened, as of
now," Leo Newbold said. "And it's
looking very much as if you were
right all along, Malcolm."

Ainslie shook his head. "That
doesn't matter. The question is,
where do you suggest we start?" The
two were in Newbold's office, with
the outer door closed.

"We'll start by keeping everything
very quiet, and for as long as
possible." Newbold hesitated before
adding, "That means even in Homicide,
and tell Ruby not to discuss this
with anyone else."

"I already have." Ainslie regarded
his superior curiously.as he asked,
"What are you thinking?"

The lieutenant shook his head
uncertainly. "I'm not sure. Except,
if the Ernst murder was a copycat
killing the way it now looks then
whoever did it set it up deliberately
to look like another serial. And that
same person knew a helluva lot about
Doil's other murders stuff that was
never in the newspapers or on TV."

Ainslie chose his words carefully.
"You're suggesting someone had inside
information, or there were deliberate
leaks to the outside?"