Detective

1

Cynthia Ernst could remember the precise moment when she decided that someday she would kill her parents. She was twelve years old, and two weeks earlier she had given birth to her father's child.

A plainly dressed, middle-aged woman had arrived unannounced at the family's mansion in the exclusive, security-protected Bay Point community on Biscayne Bay. Producing credentials that described her as a child welfare worker, she had asked the housekeeper for Mrs. Ernst.

When Cynthia heard the stranger's voice she moved quietly into the corridor outside the main-floor drawing room, where her mother had taken the woman and closed the door behind them. Equally quietly, Cynthia opened the door just enough to peer through and listen.

"Mrs. Ernst, I'm here officially to talk about your daughter's baby," the woman was saying. She looked about her, seemingly impressed by her surroundings. "I have to say that in matters like this, there's usually poverty and family neglect. Clearly that isn't the case here;"

"There has been no neglect, I assure you. Quite the contrary." Eleanor Ernst spoke quietly and carefully. "My husband and I have cared for our daughter devotedly ever since she was born, and dearly love her. As to what has happened, we are as distressed as any couple can be, though we tell ourselves that somehow we've failed miserably as parents."

"Perhaps it will help if we talk about the background. How, for example, did your daughter . . ." The visitor consulted a notebook. "Your daughter Cynthia. . . what were the circumstances under which she became pregnant? And what about the father? What do you know of him especially his age?"

Cynthia moved even closer to the doorway, not wanting to miss a word.

"The truth is, we know nothing at all about the child's father, and Cynthia has refused to tell us." Eleanor's voice was little more than a whisper. She dabbed at her eyes with a small handkerchief, then continued, "Unfortunately, young as she is, our daughter has had many boyfriends. I am sorry to say this, but I am afraid she is shamefully promiscuous. My husband and I have been worried about her for some time."

"In that case, Mrs. Ernst" the welfare woman's voice had sharpened "wouldn't it have been logical to seek professional advice? You and your husband are informed people and must know such facilities exist."

"In retrospect, perhaps we should have. But the fact is we didn't." Eleanor added pointedly, "It's always easy for others to have hindsight."

"Do you plan to have counseling now? And to include your daughter?"

"Gustav and I may well consider that. Until now the preparations we've had to make have preoccupied us. After the awful event, the child was put up for adoption we'd made prearrangements." Eleanor paused. "Do I really have to answer these questions? My husband and I have been hoping for total privacy."

The visitor had been making entries in her notebook. "The welfare of a child overrides privacy, Mrs. Ernst. But if you doubt our agency's right of inquiry, you can always ask your lawyer."

"That won't be necessary." Eleanor had become placating. "I will tell you that my husband and I, and also Cynthia, have learned a great deal from what has occurred. In a way it has drawn the three of us closer. We have had long talks, and Cynthia has given her solemn word that from now on she will mend her ways."

"Perhaps I should talk with your daughter."

"I'd much prefer you didn't. In fact, I beg of you not to. Something like that would almost certainly undo all the progress we have made."

"Are you really sure?"

"I truly am."

Nowadays, as an adult, Cynthia sometimes wondered why she hadn't barged in at that moment and blurted out the truth. Then she realized that while such an action would have embarrassed her parents and prompted questions, in the long run she most likely would not have been believed. She had read of notorious child-abuse cases in which adults who denied such charges were believed, and children weren't. The accused adults could hire fee-hungry practitioners who skillfully demolished children's statements, while the children even if they understood had no such recourse.

In any case, Cynthia perhaps with instinctive insight did not burst in, and the two women's voices faded as, having heard enough, she moved away.

Ten minutes later her mother and the welfare worker emerged, Eleanor accompanying the visitor to the front door and closing it after her. As she turned, Cynthia stepped into view and faced her mother.

Eleanor paled. "Cynthia! My God! How long have you been there?"

Cynthia glared back, silently, her gaze fierce and accusing. In most respects she still looked like a twelve-yearold girl, with short brown bangs and freckles, but her eyes, intensely green and filled with resolve, belonged to a much older woman.

Eleanor Ernst's hands were clasped nervously together, her eyes shifting. She was elegantly dressed, with coiffed hair and high heels. "Cynthia," she said, "I insist you tell me how long you've been there. Have you been listening?"

Still no words.

"Stop looking at me like that!" As Eleanor took a few steps forward, Cynthia stepped back.

After several moments her mother drew her hands to her face and quietly wept. "You heard, didn't you? Oh, darling, I had no choice; surely you see that. You know I love you. Please give Mommy a hug. You know I'd never hurt you . . . Please let me hold you."

Cynthia watched with an expression of utter detachment, then slowly turned and walked away.

The lying, hypocritical words she had heard her mother speak were seared forever in her mind. She already hated her father for his physical abuse from the earliest moments she remembered. In some ways she despised her mother even more. Even at twelve, Cynthia knew that her mother could have, and should have, sought outside help, and her failure to do so could never be forgiven.

But Cynthia, clever and shrewd even at twelve, swallowed her rage for the sake of her future. To realize all her burgeoning plans, she needed her parents especially their contacts and resources. Therefore, as time went on, in public she maintained a veneer of politeness and occasional affection. In private she rarely spoke to them.

Her father, she knew, accepted the deception, grateful for the image it conveyed to outsiders. Her mother behaved as though not a thing in the world was wrong.

And if either parent ever disagreed with her wishes, Cynthia would cross her arms and look at them with a cold, steady glare, as if to say, I know what you did to me, and you know, too. Wouldn't it be better if no one else knew? Take your choice.

This unspoken threat, an appeal to their shame, guilt, and cowardice, worked unfailingly. After a few tense, awkward moments, Gustav Ernst would invariably yield under the fierceness of his daughter's gaze and mumble, "I simply don't know what to do with you."

Eleanor, as usual, would shrug helplessly.

A disagreement between both sides emerged a couple of years later when Cynthia's schooling became an issue.

She had attended elementary and middle schools in Miami, and her report cards rated her an outstanding student. What Gustav and Eleanor planned next, at age fourteen, was a highly regarded private day school in Coral Gables, called Ransom-Everglades. But Cynthia, at fourteen, had other ideas. At the last moment, when the RansomEverglades arrangements were virtually complete, she announced that she would go to Pine Crest, a boarding school in Fort Lauderdale, some twenty-five miles north of Miami. She had applied to the school herself and agreed to attend when they accepted her.

Gustav was totally opposed. "You deliberately went against our wishes," he said over dinner that night. "If we had selected Pine Crest, you would have wanted Ransom-Everglades. "

Eleanor watched helplessly, knowing that Cynthia would eventually have her way.

And so she did, employing her usual technique. Sitting at the dinner table, she did not touch her food. Instead she stared resolutely at her father, a glint of absolute power in her eyes, until he finally put down his fork and huffed, "Oh, for heaven's sake, do whatever you want."

Cynthia nodded, rose from the table, and went to her room.

Four years later it all happened again, when Cynthia was poised to enter college. Now she was eighteen and possessed the cunning and beauty of a full-grown woman. Cynthia knew her mother desperately wanted her to attend Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, Eleanor's prestigious alma mater, and for four years had let Eleanor believe she would.

Cynthia looked to be a strong candidate; she had a fourpoint grade average at Pine Crest and was inducted into the National Honor Society. Also, Eleanor was a substantial financial donor to Smith, which supposedly didn't count, though possibly did.

The letter of acceptance was sent to the Ernsts' home and Eleanor opened it. She immediately called Cynthia at school to relay the news.

"Yes, I expected they'd take me," Cynthia said coolly.

"Darling, I can't tell you how thrilled I am. I want to have a celebration. How about dinner on Saturday? Are you free?"

"Sure, sounds fine."

Already Cynthia was enjoying the symmetry of events, and the following Saturday evening the three of them sat at the same long oak dining table, her parents at each end, Cynthia inthe middle. The table was set with their best Herend china and English linen. Candles were lit. Cynthiam had even put on a formal dress. Her parents, she could see, were glowing with happiness. Then, after pouring the wine, her father raised his glass and said, "To another generation of Smith graduates!"

"Hear, hear!" Eleanor echoed. "Oh, Cynthia, I'm so proud of you. After graduating from Smith, the world will be waiting for you."

Toying with her own wineglass, Cynthia said, "That might be true, Mother, if I were going to Smith." Amused, she watched her mother's happiness fall away. They had been through this drill so many times that every nuance was predictable.

"Whatever do you mean?" her father asked.

"I applied to Florida State at Tallahassee," Cynthia answered brightly. "They accepted me last week, and I've told them I'm coming." She raised her wineglass. "So how about that toast? To Tallahassee!"

Eleanor was too aghast to speak.

Her husband's brow was suddenly beaded with perspiration. "You will not go to that pathetic state school instead of Smith. I forbid it!"

At the other end of the table, Eleanor stood up. "Do you have any idea what a privilege it is to be accepted at Smith? The tuition there is more than twenty thousand Dollars a year. Doesn't that tell you how exclusive "

"At Tallahassee it's three thousand," Cynthia interrupted. "Think of the money you'll save." She regarded her parents placidly.

"Do you think we care . . . Oh!" Eleanor buried her face in her hands.

Gustav pounded the table. "That will not work this time, young lady!"

Now Cynthia stood, too, and glared at both parents in turn. The unspoken words were deafening. Gustav tried to return her stare, but, as had happened before, he looked away and sighed. Finally. shrugging in defeat, he left. Seconds later, Eleanor followed.

Cynthia sat down and finished her dinner.

Three years later, having completed four years' worth of courses, Cynthia graduated from Florida State University with highest honors and membership in Phi Beta Kappa.

* * *

Cynthia had many male friends in high school and college, and to her surprise, she found she enjoyed sex, despite childhood memories. As she saw it, however, sex was all about power. She would never, ever, again be a docile partner. In every sexual relationship she sought to dominate, no matter what kind of sex was involved, or with whom. A further surprise was that men enjoyed her dominance. Most became more aroused because of it. One partner, a linebacker, said after an intense night of lovemaking, "Jesus, Cyn, you're sexy as hell, but cruel."

Still, for all her involvements, Cynthia never fell in love, never allowed herself to. She simply was not prepared to relinquish that much independence.

Much later the same game plan was partially true of her affair with Malcolm Ainslie. Like most of the men who preceded him, he enjoyed her "sexual calisthenics," as he once labeled them, and responded in kind. But Cynthia never quite possessed Malcolm, or dominated him totally as she had others; there was a strength within him she could never overcome. During their affair she had tried to break up Malcolm's marriage with mischief, a close cousin of power, as her sole objective. She had not the slightest intention of marrying him herself or anyone else, for that matter. To Cynthia, marriage represented little more than surrendering control, something she vowed she would never do.

In direct contrast to Malcolm was the novelist Patrick Jensen, whom Cynthia dominated from the moment they first met. Initially their relationship was about sex, though eventually it became more complex. Her alliances with both men began about the same time, though Cynthia kept the two apart, running as she thought of it on parallel tracks.

Patrick had been going through a difficult time when his liaison with Cynthia began, mainly because of the breakup of his marriage. His wife, Naomi, had divorced him and, after a bitter contest, won a handsome settlement. According to friends, during the seven years the Jensen marriage lasted, it was filled with Patrick's tempestuous rages, prompting Naomi to make three complaints of physical abuse to police. Each time, they were withdrawn after Patrick promised to reform. He never did. Even following the divorce, Patrick publicly exhibited his jealousy of Naomi when she was with another man, and once had to be restrained.

For Patrick, Cynthia Ernst was a haven in every way. He conceded that she was far stronger than he was, and willingly became a compliant cohort, relying on her guidance more and more. For her part, Cynthia believed she had found someone she could both control and use in advancing her long-term personal plans.

That belief was confirmed late one night when Patrick arrived at Cynthia's apartment.

From her bed she heard an insistent pounding on her outer door. Peering through a peephole, she could see Patrick glancing up and down the hall and running his fingers through his hair.

When she opened the door he rushed in and said, "Jesus, Cynthia, I've done something terrible! I've got to get away. Can I take your car?" He hurried to a window and looked both ways up and down the street below. "I've got to get out of here . . . got to go somewhere! Cyn, I need your help." He looked at her imploringly, his fingers still rifling his hair.

"My God, Patrick, you're dripping with sweat." Cynthia told him firmly, "You have to calm down. Sit down and I'll get you a Scotch."

She joined him on a couch with the drink, then massaged, his neck. He started to talk, subsided, then suddenly blurted out, "Oh God, Cyn, I killed Naomi! Shot her." His voice choked.

Cynthia inched away. As a police officer a Homicide detective, especially her duty was clear. She should arrest Patrick, give him a Miranda warning, and take him into custody. Thinking fast, weighing possibilities and opportunities, she did none of those things. Instead she went to her bedroom, took a tape recorder from a bedside drawer, inserted a new tape and, as she reentered the living room, pressed RECORD. Patrick was crying, his head in his hands. Cynthia put the machine on a table near him, shielded from view by a plant.

Then she said, "Patrick, if you want me to help you, you have to tell me exactly what happened."

He looked up, nodded, then began, his voice still breaking. "I didn't plan it, didn't intend . . . but always hated the thought of Naomi with someone else . . . When I saw those two together, her and that creep, I was blinded, angry . . . I'd been carrying a gun. I pulled it out, without even thinking, fired . . . Suddenly it was over . . . Then I saw what I'd done. Oh God, I'd killed them both!"

Cynthia was aghast. "You killed other people? Who was the other?"

"Kilburn Holmes." He said abjectly, "He'd been seeing Naomi, was with her all the time. People told me."

"You stupid ducking idiot!" For the first time, Cynthia felt cold fear. It was a double murder in which Patrick was certain to be a suspect, and what she was doing assuming she continued could cost her own career and freedom.

"Did anyone see you?" she asked. "Was there any witness?"

Patrick shook his head. "No one, I'm sure of that. It was dark and late. Even the shots didn't draw attention."

"Did you leave anything, anything whatever, at the scene?"

"I'm sure I didn't."

"As you were leaving, did you hear noise? Was there an alarm, voices?"

"No."

"Where is the gun?"

"Here." From a pocket he produced a Smith & Wesson .38.

"Put it on that table," she told him.

Cynthia paused, calculating the risks she might be taking, weighing them against the leverage they would give her over Patrick. She saw her duty clearly, but she also saw him as a useful tool.

Making a decision, she went to her kitchenette and returned with several plastic bags and kitchen tongs. Without touching the gun, which would have Patrick's fingerprints on it, she placed it in a plastic bag and sealed it. Then she pointed to a T-shirt he was wearing. "Take that off; those sneakers, too." Both were bloodstained.

Again, using the tongs, she put the T-shirt and shoes in other bags. "Now give me your house keys and take off the rest of your clothes."

When Patrick hesitated, Cynthia snapped, "Do exactly what I say! Now, where was it that you killed them?"

"In the driveway of Naomi's house." He shook his head and sighed.

With her back to Patrick and blocking his view, Cynthia turned off the tape recorder. In any case, she realized, he was still too dazed to notice.

Patrick had now shed all his clothes and was naked. He stood nervously, his shoulders slouched, eyes to the floor. Again Cynthia went to the kitchenette, and brought back a large brown bag, into which she stuffed Patrick's remaining clothes.

"I'm going to your house," she said. "I'll dump these somewhere and bring you back fresh clothes. While I'm gone, take a very hot shower and scrub yourself use a nail brush all over, and especially your hand that held the gun. Where did you get the gun?"

"I bought it two months ago." He added gloomily, "My name's on record."

"If the gun isn't found and there's no other evidence, you're safe. So you lost it a week after you bought it. Remember that, and don't change that story."

"I won't," Patrick mumbled.

As Cynthia left, he was entering her bathroom.

* * *

On the way to Patrick's house, taking a roundabout route, Cynthia disposed of his clothes in separate garbage cans and a Dumpster. At the house, she quickly put together fresh clothes for him to wear.

At 5:30 A.M., Cynthia returned to her apartment and upon opening the door saw Patrick sitting on the couch, hunched over the glass coffee table with a rolled-up Doilar bill in his nose.

"How dare you do that here!" she screamed.

His head shot up, revealing four lines of cocaine on the tabletop, which he had not yet inhaled.

Patrick wiped his nose and sniffed. "Jesus, Cynthia, no big deal. I just thought it would help me through this."

"Flush it down the toilet and any more you have. Now!"

Patrick started to object, then headed for the bathroom, muttering, "It's not like I'm an addict."

Cynthia silently acknowledged that Patrick was not, in fact, an addict. Like others whom she knew, he used the drug intermittently. She herself never used drugs, or anything else that might diminish her control.

Patrick returned from the bathroom blustering about the two hundred bucks he had flushed away. Ignoring him, Cynthia began to label and describe the items she had placed in plastic bags, including the gun and bloodstained clothing, making sure that Patrick was watching. Afterward, she put everything in a cardboard carton, intending to add the tape recording later.

Patrick, pacing the room restlessly, asked, "Why are you doing all that?"

"Just to make everything tidy." Cynthia knew it was an unsatisfactory answer, but it didn't matter. Patrick was high now, hyper and inattentive. Dismissing the query, as she expected, he launched into a description of how he kept his writer's notes in a similarly organized way.

Later, after Cynthia had hidden the box of damning evidence, she would answer Patrick's question more precisely and in a way he would like less.

* * *

The following evening, alone, Cynthia played back the tape. The quality was good. She had brought home another recorder and an extra tape to accomplish the next step. First, on the original recorded tape where Patrick described the double killing, Cynthia performed what tape technicians with a sense of history termed a "NixonWoods-Watergate" erasing a previously recorded portion by running the tape and holding down the RECORD button with no microphone connected. Using a stopwatch and notes, she wiped out all traces of her own voice. Afterward, just as on President Nixon's crucial Watergate tape, there were long gaps, but no matter Patrick's performance was clear and damning, as he would realize when Cynthia played it back to him. Meanwhile she made an extra copy of the edited tape for that purpose, putting the original in the carton with the other evidence.

She sealed the carton carefully with blue plastic tape bearing her initials, then drove with it to her parents' Bay Point house. There Cynthia had a private room on the top floor, where she stayed occasionally and stored some personal effects. Unlocking the room, she placed the carton on a high shelf in a cupboard, out of sight behind other boxes. She planned to reopen the carton and remove the labels that bore her handwriting; also, while wearing gloves, she would replace the plastics bags, which had her fingerprints, with new ones that did not. Somehow, though, as time went by and other pressures mounted, it never happened.

From the beginning, Cynthia did not intend to have anyone view the carton's contents. She simply wanted Patrick to see her assemble and catalog the items, giving her a permanent hold over him. Then eventually, she supposed, she would put the evidence in a metal strongbox and throw it into the Atlantic Ocean, miles offshore.

* * *

Almost at once after the discovery of the bodies of Naomi Jensen and Kilburn Holmes, Patrick Jensen became Miami Homicide's prime suspect and was questioned intensively. To Cynthia's relief, there were no adequate grounds on which to arrest and charge him. It was true that Jensen had opportunity and no alibi. But, beyond that, there was a total lack of evidence. She had also cautioned Patrick to say as little as possible while being questioned, and not to volunteer anything. "Remember, you do not have to prove your innocence," she had emphasized. "It's the cops who must prove your guilt."

Two minor pieces of evidence were found by an ID crew at the murder scene, but neither was conclusive. A handkerchief found near the bodies matched others Jensen owned. But nothing on the handkerchief proved that it was his.

Similarly, a fragment of paper clutched in Kilburn Holmes's hand matched another fragment found in Jensen's garbage. Again, it proved nothing. The bullets in both bodies were identified as .38 caliber, and records showed that Jensen had bought a Smith & Wesson .38 two months before. But he claimed to have lost the gun a week after buying it, a search of his house did not reveal it, and, without the murder weapon, nothing could be done.

Cynthia was also glad that Ainslie's team was not involved with the case, which was handled by Sergeant Pablo Greene, with Detective Charlie Thurston as lead investigator. Since Cynthia was known to have socialized with Jensen, Thurston did ask her, almost diffidently, "Do you know anything at all about this guy that might help us?"

She had answered, pleasantly enough, "No, I don't."

"Do you believe Jensen would have been capable of killing those two?"

"I'm sorry to say this, Charlie," Cynthia replied. "But yes, I do."

Thurston nodded. "So do I."

And that had been the end of it. It clearly did not occur to Sergeant Greene, Detective Thurston, or anyone else in Homicide that Detective Cynthia Ernst, while having been acquainted in the past with someone who was now a murder suspect, could even remotely be involved.

The reason, of course, was that the face Cynthia presented to her colleagues, superiors, and most others she met was cooperative and friendly. Only criminals with whom she dealt saw her cold and ruthless side.

Patrick Jensen encountered that side when Cynthia next saw him, after cautiously avoiding him for several months.

2

For Cynthia's next meeting with Jensen she chose the Cayman Islands, the ultimate discreet destination where total privacy is possible if that is what you want. Cynthia did.

They traveled separately and stayed at different hotels. Cynthia's reservation at Grand Cayman's Hyatt Regency was in the name of Hilda Shawl To avoid using an identifying credit card, she sent a cash deposit via Western Union and added more cash on arrival. At the check-in desk, no one raised an eyebrow.

Jensen, obeying phoned instructions from Cynthia, made his own separate reservation at the nearby, more modest Sleep Inn. But for most of the three days and nights in Grand Cayman, he stayed in Cynthia's room, which overlooked sculptured gardens.

When they first met there, having been apart for three months, they seized each other, hurriedly tore off their clothes, and made violent love so violent that when Cynthia climaxed she pounded both clenched fists on Jensen's shoulders.

He protested, "Jesus Christ, that hurts!"

When they were lying calmly amid the rumpled sheets, Patrick said, "So much happened that last night we were together, I never got around to thanking you for what you did for me. So I thank you now."

"Thanks aren't important." Cynthia's voice was deliberately offhand. "I simply paid a purchase price."

Patrick laughed. "What does that mean?"

"It means I own you."

There was a silence. Patrick said slowly, "I suppose you're talking about that box of tricks? You've got it hidden away somewhere."

She nodded. "Naturally."

"And you think that if I disobey you somehow, or offend you, you can open it up and say, 'Hey, guys! look at all this evidence. Now you can nail that bastard Jensen.' "

"You write good dialogue." Cynthia gave a small, tight smile. "I couldn't have said it better."

Patrick's face had the ghost of a smile, too. "But there's a detail or two you've overlooked. Even you. Like your handwriting on those labels. And some fingerprints. . ."

"All of that's gone," she lied, reminding herself that it was a detail she must attend to soon. "I labeled the bags so you'd remember what I was doing. Now only your fingerprints are on everything. And, oh yes, there's an audiotape."

Cynthia described how everything Jensen had said in her apartment that night his admission of having killed Naomi and her friend Kilburn Holmes had been recorded. "I brought a copy of the tape with me. Want to hear it?"

He gestured dismissively. "Never mind; I believe you. But I could still rope you in by explaining how you helped me hide the evidence. So if they found me guilty, you'd be fucked an accessory at least."

Cynthia shook her head. "No one would believe you.

I'd deny everything and would be believed. And something else." Her voice hardened. "The evidence would be found in some place where you could have hidden it. Unfortunately, you wouldn't know where that was until an anonymous tip-off caused the police to find it."

They faced each other fully then, each calculating. Paradoxically, Jensen leaned back and laughed. With apparent good nature he lifted both hands in a signal of surrender. "Darling Cynthia, you're really a skewed genius. Well, you said you own me. I now admit you do."

"You don't seem to mind."

"This may be some kind of perversion, but the funny thing is, I rather like it." He added thoughtfully, "It would make a great story."

"Which you will never write."

"Then what will I do since I'm to be some kind of pet you're holding on a leash?"

The moment had come. Cynthia's eyes riveted him. "You will help me kill my parents."

* * *

"Listen to me," Cynthia ordered. "Listen very carefully."

Moments earlier, when Jensen had tried to talk to reason with her, as he saw it, after her shattering statement she'd silenced him. He sat quietly waiting.

Now, taking her time, drawing on earliest childhood memories plus details she had coaxed from her mother, Cynthia laid before him, graphically and persuasively, the whole story, sparing him and herself nothing.

As a newborn . . . Custav's sick sexual obsession with Cynthia. . . his obscene probing. . . her own innocent terror, growing each day until, at the age of three, even the sight of her father approaching made her hide under the covers, sobbing, shrinking away. . .

Eleanor did nothing, thinking of herself only of her own potential shame and disgrace if Gustav's perversion was revealed. . .

Meanwhile, Cynthia's young mind was developing, even while Gustav persisted in abusing her. . . Her memories, now crystallizing, would be carried with her down the years, along with fear and rage. . .

The memories were monstrous of Gustav's everincreasing sexual interest in his daughter, stimulated now by beatings. . . hard, stinging slaps and blows for trivial ''offenses,'' their nature neither explained nor understood . . . And more, still more "punishment" for what?. . . The bruises, the burned legs. . . the endless lies her mother told . . .

When Cynthia was six, her father first rubbed himself against her. . . And later, as her body grew the ultimate perversion and humiliation he began raping her, an act so disgusting and painful that she screamed. .. Gustav, obsessed with his own satisfaction, took no notice, perhaps even enjoying his daughter's despair. . . Still Eleanor did nothing . . .

Thus, with the stage set finally, inevitably Cynthia's pregnancy happened at age twelve. . . The horror for a child now hidden away, shielded from outsiders' view, knowing she was ungainly, her body expanding amid strange sensations and movement inside her. . . Aware, too, she was in deep disgrace, made to feel guilty, yet helpless to help herself, and with no one to talk with, to lean on, or to trust. . . And at the degrading, secret, painful birthing, the baby she never saw whisked away. . .

The sole consolation: The sexual assaults by Gustav, which had continued through her pregnancy, somehow ceased, for reasons she never knew until much later, when her mother reluctantly revealed their lawyer's threat to expose Gustav if he didn't stop . . .

Then, like some evil postscript, Eleanor and her statement to the welfare woman that official person who accepted the glib lies and never insisted on hearing Cynthia's story . . .

Eventually, and despite everything, Cynthia's coldly pragmatic calculation . . . her decision to bide her time, to use her parents until her independence was assured, and then to exercise her long-festering hatred and to kill them as they had killed so much in her. . .

That retribution time was nearer now, as she began to plan . . . And she had her instrument. . .

* * *

Throughout the entire recital, Patrick Jensen scarcely moved. But his face was a mirror of successive emotions incredulity at first, then disgust, anger, horror, and concern. At one point his eyes even brimmed with tears. At another he reached out as if to take Cynthia's hand, but she withdrew it.

At the end he shook his head in anguish. "Unbelievable." His voice was barely audible. "I can hardly believe - "

"Goddam! You'd better believe it," Cynthia cut in sharply, combatively.

"I didn't mean that . . . Give me a minute." After a pause, "I do believe you. Every single thing. But it's so - '

Impatiently, "So what?"

"So hard to find words to fit. In my life I've done bad things, but this kind of sick "

"Oh, Patrick, get off it. You murdered two people."

"Yeah, I know." He grimaced. "I'm a shit, okay. Yes, I did kill out of passion, or impulse, or whatever. But what I'm saying is that your parents, over a long period, with lots of time to think about what they were doing. . . well, the way I see it, your parents are the stinking scum of the earth."

Cynthia said, "Good. So maybe you understand why I want to kill them."

After the briefest hesitation, Jensen nodded. "Yes, I do."

"So you will help me."

* * *

For two hours Cynthia and Patrick Jensen talked sometimes heatedly, occasionally calmly, at moments persuasively, but never lightly. Their thoughts, arguments, doubts, discussions, denials, threats, persuasions, were all arranged, discarded, and rearranged, like jumbled dominoes.

At one point Patrick tried: "And suppose I don't say yes to your insane proposition, if I tell you the hell with it, go screw yourself. Then would you really open up that box of snakes that could put me in the chair? If you did that, you'd accomplish nothing."

"Yes, I'd do it," Cynthia answered. "I wouldn't make the threat if I didn't mean it. Besides, you deserve to be punished, if not by me, then for Naomi.''

"Then what would you do, Lady Noble Avenger?" Jensen's voice was contemptuous. "Without me, how would you plow the killing fields?"

"I'd find someone else."

And he knew she would.

Much later, Jensen argued, "I told you that what I did was a crime of passion; I admitted that, and wish I could undo it. But I couldn't simply know I couldn't do a cold-blooded, premeditated murder." He threw up his hands. "Like it or not, that's the way it is."

"I know all that," Cynthia said. "I've known it all along."

Jensen sputtered, "Then for God's sake, why in hell "

"I want you to arrange for someone else to do it," she said calmly. "And pay them."

Jensen inhaled a deep breath, held it, then let it out. Both his body and his brain felt an overwhelming sense of relief. Then, a moment later, he wondered: Why?

He already knew the answer. Cynthia, adroitly and with cynical psychology, had maneuvered him to a point where what she now proposed was the better of two choices: Go to prison for life, or perhaps pay the ultimate penalty of death for the murders of Naomi and her friend, or take a chance in arranging for someone else to do another killing for which he, Patrick, had no stomach. He might not even have to be present when it happened. There would be a chance of discovery and exposure, of course, with a penalty for that, too. But that had been the case since the night he killed Naomi.

Cynthia was smiling slightly as she watched him. "You've figured it out, haven't you?"

"You're a witch and a bitch!"

"But you'll do it. You don't really have a choice."

Strangely, in his storyteller's mind, Jensen was already thinking of it as a game. He supposed it was perverse, undoubtedly despicable. Just the same, it was a game that he could play and win.

"I know you've been banging out with a pretty scummy crowd lately," Cynthia prompted. "All you have to do is find the right guy." In fact, Jensen had been slowly immersing himself in the criminal underworld, beginning more than two years earlier when he decided to write a novel about drug trafficking. In the course of researching the story he had sought out some small-time drug dealers not difficult because of his own occasional cocaine use who, in turn, had referred him to bigger sharks.

Two or three of those bigger operators, while agreeing to meet him out of curiosity, were slow to relax, but finally decided that a real, live author, "a smart guy with his name on books," could be trusted. The inherent vanity of most career criminals and the compulsion to be noticed also opened doors for Jensen. In bars and nightclubs, with drinks and confidences flowing, a question he often encountered was "You gonna put me in a book?" His stock answer was "Maybe." Thus, in time, Jensen's criminal acquaintanceships widened, beyond what he needed for research, and he began doing some occasional drug deals and drug transporting himself, surprised to find how easy it was, and how pleasantly profitable.

The profit was helpful because his crime novel did not do well, nor did another that followed, and it appeared that Patrick's high-flying best-seller days might be over. At the same time he had made some bad investments, based on poor advice, and his accumulated money was diminishing alarmingly.

The combined factors made Cynthia's bizarre objective at least more feasible, not entirely unthinkable, perhaps even interesting.

"You know we'll have to pay someone a lot for this job," he said to Cynthia. "And I don't have that kind of money."

"I know," she said. "But I have plenty." And she did.

Gustav Ernst, as part of his attempts to make peace with his daughter after the long years of abuse, had given Cynthia a generous monthly allowance, which supplemented her salary and enabled her to live well. For her part, she accepted it as her due.

In addition, Gustav also arranged for substantial sums of money to be placed in a Cayman Islands bank account in Cynthia's name. But Cynthia had not acknowledged the Caymans money or used any of it, though the accumulated amount, she knew, was now in excess of five million Dollars.

For many years Gustav Ernst had been a successful financial entrepreneur; his specialty was buying major interests in small, innovative companies in need of venture capital. His instincts were uncanny. Most companies he chose would burgeon in a short time, their stock soaring, at which point Gustav sold out. His net worth reputedly was sixty million Dollars.

Gustav's younger brother, Zachary, had shed his United States citizenship as increasing numbers of wealthy Americans were doing to avoid punitive taxation. Now Zachary divided his residency between the Caymans and the Bahamas, both congenial, sunny tax havens. It was Zachary who opened Cynthia's Cayman account and put money in it periodically, always as a tax-free "gift." On each occasion Cynthia received a confirming letter along the following lines:

My dear Cynthia:

I do hope you will accept the latest gift I have placed in your account. These days I seem to have more money than I need, and since I have no wife, children, or other relatives, it gives me pleasure to pass these sums along to you. I trust you are able to make use of them.

From your affectionate

Uncle Zack.

Cynthia knew the money was, in fact, from Gustav, who had his own arrangements with Zachary involving tax avoidance or was it evasion? Cynthia neither knew nor cared, except for being aware that avoidance was legal, evasion illegal.

She did care, however, about her own legal position and, while not acknowledging the letters, saved them and sought a tax consultant's advice.

He reported back, "The letters are fine. Keep them in case you ever need to prove the deposits were gifts and nontaxable. About your Cayman account and your receiving gifts there, all of that is perfectly in order. But each year on your U.S. tax return you must report having that account, and declare any interest earned as income. Then you'll be in the clear."

Subsequently one of Cynthia's tax returns was audited and approved, with the consultant's advice confirmed, so she never had to worry about breaking the law. Even so, she kept her Cayman wealth a secret from everyone except the consultant and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. She had no intention of telling Jensen, either.

For a few minutes he had been silent, thinking.

"Plenty of money will be a help," he resumed. "To do what you have in mind, making sure the killings stay unsolved and no one talks . . . the price will be steep maybe two hundred thousand Dollars."

"I can pay that,'' Cynthia said.

"How? "

"Cash."

"Okay. So what's our time frame?"

"There isn't one not yet. You can take however long you need to find the right person someone who's clever, tough, brutal, discreet, and totally reliable."

"It won't be easy."

"That's why you'll have plenty of time." She would savor the waiting, Cynthia thought, knowing that eventually her revenge, which she had planned so long ago, would be fulfilled.

"While you're at it," Patrick said, "figure on a lot of money for me, too."

"You'll get it, and part will be for protecting me. You are not to mention my name to whoever you hire. Don't even hint of my involvement at any time, to anyone. AISO, the fewer details I know, the better except I must be told a date at least two weeks ahead."

"So you can have an alibi?"

Cynthia nodded. "So I can be three thousand miles away."

3

"Take however long you need," Cynthia had told Patrick Jensen. But it was almost four years certainly longer than Cynthia had intended before the irrevocable steps were taken.

The intervening time passed quickly, however particularly for Cynthia, who was climbing the promotion ladder at the Miami Police Department with exceptional speed. Yet neither Cynthia's successes nor the passage of time tempered the hatred she felt toward her parents. Nor did it diminish her need for revenge. From time to time she reminded Jensen of his commitment to her, which he acknowledged, insisting that he was still looking for the right guy someone resourceful, ruthless, brutal, and dependable. He had not, so far, appeared.

At times, in Jensen's mind, the whole concept seemed eerie and unreal. As a novelist he had often written about criminals, but all of it was abstract no more than words on a computer screen. The true darkness of crime, as he saw it then, was in a world that belonged to others a whole different brand of people. Yet now he had become one of them. Through a single crazy act he had committed a capital crime and, in that instant, his formerly law abiding life was gone. Did others enter the underworld in that same headlong, unplanned way? He supposed many did.

As time passed, he sometimes asked himself, What have you become, Patrick Jensen? And answered objectively, Whatever it is, you've gone too far; there can be no turning back.. . Virtue's a luxury you can't afford anymore . . . There was once a time for conscience, but that time has gone . . . If someone ever discovers and discloses what you've done, nothing nothing at all will be forgotten or forgiven . . . So survival is all that matters survival at any cost. . . even at the cost of other lives. . .

All the same, Jensen was still haunted by that sense of unreality.

In contrast, he was sure, Cynthia had no such illusions. She possessed an inflexibility that never abandoned a target. He had seen that trait at work, knew that because of it he would not escape his mission as Cynthia Ernst's surrogate executioner, and that if he failed her, she would keep her promise and destroy him.

In essence, Jensen came to realize, he was no longer the same person he had once been. Instead he had become a self-protective, ruthless stranger.

* * *

Despite the delay in her primary objective, Cynthia had taken care of a secondary one by using her senior rank, plus some biased research and use of old records, to thwart Malcolm Ainslie's promotion to lieutenant. Her motives were clear enough, even to Cynthia. After a childhood of what amounted to complete and utter rejection, she was determined that no one no one would ever reject her again. But Malcolm had, and for that, she would never forget, never forgive. Eventually, after the long delay in her final reckoning with Gustav and Eleanor Ernst, Cynthia decided she had waited long enough. She conveyed her impatience to Patrick during a weekend in Nassau, Bahamas, where again they were registered at separate hotels, Cynthia at the luxurious Paradise Island Ocean Club.

After a long and satisfying morning of sex, Cynthia suddenly sat up in her bed. "You've had more than enough time. I want some action, or I'll take some." She leaned over and kissed his forehead. "And trust me, sweetheart, you won't like the kind of action I have in mind."

"I know." Jensen had been expecting this kind of ultimatum for some time and asked, "How long do I have?"

"Three months."

"Make it six."

"Four, beginning tomorrow."

He sighed, knowing that she meant it, aware also that for reasons of his own the time had come.

* * *

Jensen had produced one more book, which, like the two preceding it, was a failure compared with his earlier bestsellers. As a result, the publishers' advances Patrick received for all three books, which he had spent long ago, were not earned out and no more royalty payments were forthcoming. The next step was predictable. His American publishing house, which during his successful years paid him handsome advances against books not yet written, declined to do so anymore, insisting instead that he submit a finished manuscript before any contract was signed and money changed hands.

This left Jensen in a desperate situation. During the preceding few years he had not moderated his expensive living habits, and not only were his current assets nil, but he was deeply in debt. Thus the possibility of receiving two hundred thousand Dollars to hire a killer of which Jensen intended to keep half, plus a similar sum he envisaged for his own services was now urgent and attractive.

Through a series of coincidences, he moved closer to finding his man. These coincidences, initially unconnected to Patrick, involved the police, a group of disabled veterans from Vietnam and the Gulf War, and drugs. The vets, who had suffered wartime wounds that confined them to wheelchairs, were once mired in a postwar life of drugs, but had kicked the habit and were now anti-drug crusaders. In the uneasy, mixed-race area where they lived between Grand Avenue and Bird Road in Coconut Grove they had declared a private war on those who sold drugs and helped ruin the lives of so many, especially young people. The group's members were aware that others in their community were trying to fight drugs and traffickers, but mostly not succeeding. However, the vets in wheelchairs were succeeding and, in their special way, had become vigilantes and undercover police informers.

Paradoxically, their leader and inspirer was neither a military veteran nor a reformed drug user, but a former athlete and scholar. Stewart Rice, age twenty-three, sometimes known as Stewie, had suffered a fall four years earlier while climbing a sheer mountain face, leaving him permanently paralyzed below the waist and confined to a wheelchair. He, too, felt strongly about young people and drugs, and his alliance with the vets resulted from shared opinions and the camaraderie that people in wheelchairs feel instinctively for each other.

As Rice expressed it to newcomers to the group, which had begun with three Vietnam vets and expanded to a dozen, "Young people, kids, with whole bodies and active lives, are being destroyed by the drug scum who should be in jail. And we're helping put them there."

The wheelchair group's modus operandi was to collect information about who was dealing, where, when, how often, and when new supplies were expected, then pass all that information anonymously to the Police Department's anti-drug task force.

Rice again, speaking with a trusted friend: "Those of us in chairs can move around where the drug action is, and hardly anyone takes notice. If they think about us at all, they figure we're panhandling, like all those guys on Bird Road. They believe that because our legs are paralyzed or our arms don't work, we're that way, too, in our heads especially the druggies and dealers who've destroyed the few brain cells they once had."

At the police end, anti-drug task force members were skeptical when the informational phone calls began calls Rice always made himself, using a cellular phone to avoid tracing. Immediately after a tip-off, whoever answered would demand the caller's identification, but "Stewie" was the only name Rice gave before hanging up quickly. But soon, after discovering the information was usable and dependable, a call beginning, "This is Stewie," was greeted by, "Hi, buddy! What you got for us?" No tracing was attempted. Why spoil a good thing?

As a result, gang drug trafficking was increasingly disrupted by police. Arrests and convictions mounted. Parts of Coconut Grove were becoming cleaner. Then the pattern broke.

Major drug traffickers, aware that some kind of espionage must be occurring, began asking questions. At first there were no answers. Then an arrested dealer overheard one drug cop say to another, "Stewie sure came through this time."

Within hours a question was buzzing through the Grove: "Who the fuck is Stewie?"

The answer came quickly. Along with it, through neighborhood gossip, the wheelchair group's tactics were exposed.

Stewart Rice had to die, and in such a way as to warn others like him.

The contract killing was ordered for the next day, which was the point at which through coincidence Patrick Jensen became involved.

* * *

Jensen had become a regular at the Brass Doubloon, a noisy, smoky bar and lounge well known as a hangout for drug dealers, and that night when he walked in, a voice from a table called across, "Hey, Pat! You writin' somethin' new, man? Come tell us!" The voice belonged to a narrow-faced, pockmarked ex-con with a long rap sheet, named Arlie. He was with several others, also part of the scene that Jensen had come to know during his search for a crime story. One in the group whom Jensen had not seen before was a huge, hard-featured man with wide shoulders, powerful arms, close-cropped hair, and a mulatto's complexion. The stranger, dwarfing the others, was scowling. He growled a question, which another at the table answered.

"Pat's okay, Virgilio. He writes books, see. You tell him shit, he makes a story. Just a story nothing real, don't do us no harm."

Someone else added, "Yeah, Pat keeps his mouth shut. He knows he'd better. Right, Pat?"

Jensen nodded. "Absolutely."

A space was opened for him and a chair pulled in. Facing the huge newcomer, he said easily, "No need to tell me anything, Virgilio, and I just forgot your name. I'll ask one question, though." Everyone stared. "Can I buy you a drink?"

The huge man, still scowling, looked at Jensen steadily. Then he said, in a heavily accented voice, "I buy drinks."

"Fine." Jensen did not look away, either. "A double Black Label."

A barman behind them called, "Coming up!"

Virgilio stood. Looming even larger on his feet, he announced tersely, "First I piss." He turned away.

When he had gone, the second man who had spoken, whose name was Dutch, told Patrick, "He's sizin' you up. Better hope he likes you."

"Why should I care?"

"Because nobody messes with Virgilio. He's Colombian; comes and goes here. On his home turf, four finks double-crossed their boss, talked to Colombian cops. Virgilio got the job of showin' 'em they did bad. Know what he did?"

Jensen shook his head.

"He found them, tied 'em to trees, their arms stretched out. Then he used a chain saw on every one cut off their right arms."

Jensen took a hasty sip of Scotch.

Arlie whispered, "Do you some good to know Virgilio. Be some action tonight. You interested?"

"Yes." Even as he spoke, a new thought occurred to Jensen.

"When he gets back," Dutch said, "wait for a bit, then go to the can and take your time. We'll ask Virgilio if it's okay to let you in.''

Jensen did as he was told. Soon afterward, a nod.

* * *

"Keep on following the jeep," Dutch instructed Jensen. "And when they stop and turn off their lights, do the same."

It was almost 3:00 A.M. They were in Jensen's Volvo, having driven thirty-five miles south on Florida's Turnpike, led by a Jeep Cherokee ahead, with Arlie driving and Virgilio his passenger. Then, just past Florida City, an entrance to the Everglades, they turned onto Card Sound Road, a desolate byway leading to Key Largo. By the light of a half moon, Jensen could make out the tidewater and broken-down houseboats nestled along mudbanks on either side. There were no homes or villages to provide ambient light, nor was there any sign of other cars. Motorists shunned this route at night, preferring the more traveled and safer U.S.1 Highway.

"I sure as hell couldn't live in one of those shitheaps," Dutch said. "Could you?" Their headlights had revealed a pile of debris that was once a boat, with a crude sign reading, Blue Crabbs for Sale. Jensen, wondering by now why he was here at all, didn't answer.

At that moment the jeep in front swung off the road onto a gravelly area, stopped, and its lights went out. Jensen followed, turned off the Volvo's lights, and got out. The two from the jeep stood waiting. Nothing was said.

The big Colombian walked to the water's edge, peering out into the darkness.

Suddenly, headlights appeared. A tradesman's van, with a "Plumber's Pal" logo on its side panel, pulled off the road and stopped next to Virgilio and Arlie's jeep. Immediately two male figures left the van; Patrick noticed they were wearing gloves. The newcomers went to the van's rear doors, where the others joined them. Jensen hung back.

Inside the van, a shape was visible. As the object was pulled to the rear, Patrick saw it was a mechanical-type wheelchair that had been transported on its back. A figure was in the chair and, though secured by ropes, appeared to be struggling. Virgilio moved forward; he, too, had slipped on gloves. Then, as if the heavy chair were weightless, Virgilio lifted it out and stood it upright. Patrick, who now faced the chair, could see that the seated figure was a young male, gagged and bound. He could see the captive's eyes moving desperately from side to side, and the mouth working, too, trying to eject the gag. Somehow, for a moment, the man in the chair succeeded and spat part of the gag loose. Looking at Jensen, who was separate from the others, he blurted, "I've been kidnapped! My name's Stewie Rice. These people will kill me! Please help "

The words had barely finished when Virgilio smashed an enormous hand against Stewie's face. A spurt of blood emerged from his mouth along with a sharp cry, stifled as Dutch reached out and readjusted the gag. Still the captive's eyes roved, frantically pleading. Jensen had to look away.

"We move quick," Virgilio pronounced, propelling the wheelchair toward the water, again lifting it easily when it stuck. The pair who had arrived in the van followed, one carrying a chain, the other a cement block. Dutch joined them and beckoned Jensen to follow. Reluctantly, he did so. Arlie remained on shore.

Now they were in the water, whose course had been dredged out years before as a canal. Although shallow at the edge, farther out it plunged down to eight or ten feet. The two who had brought the wheelchair waded forward, maneuvering around a tangle of mangroves.

Ahead through the blackness was a mangrove islet, one of several, surrounded by shallow water and sea grass. The two from the van, who appeared to know the locale, had stopped where they felt the water deepen. One said, "Here'll do."

Virgilio, propelling the chair and its panicked occupant on his own, pushed it forward until the captive was more than half immersed. Now the other two used the chain to secure the chair, passing it in turn through each wheel, now underwater, then at one end fastening it to a plant stump on the islet, and at the other end to the cement block they had brought.

"Sure as hell won't float," Dutch said. "Tide's rising now, be over his head in a couple hours." He laughed. "Give the bastard some time to think."

The figure in the wheelchair, who had clearly overheard, moaned and struggled harder, but the only effect was to shift the wheelchair deeper in the water.

In the darkness Jensen shuddered. Since facing the captive, he had known he was part of a murder, as an accessory at least. But he knew, too, that if he had tried to leave, he could become a victim also. Virgilio would not hesitate to make that happen.

Deep within, a small voice from the past asked, What am 1? When did I stop caring? . . . And Jensen was reminded of his earlier thought: The person I once was no longer exists.

"We go," Virgilio pronounced.

As they moved toward shore, leaving the wheelchair and its occupant, Jensen tried not to imagine what Stewie Rice's dying would be like. Inevitably he did. He envisioned the tide rising gradually while Rice watched helplessly until salt water a little at a time began to lap at his face . . . Soon he would hold his head as high as possible, inhaling when he could, preserving each breath against the inexorable rise of the water. . . Survival until the absolute last moment would be instinctive . . . Perhaps he would succeed in breathing intermittently, though knowing he would shortly fail . . . Then, as the water rose still more, in desperation he would choke and splutter. . . and finally, as his mouth and nose were covered and his lungs filled, mercifully he would drown. . .

Jensen pulled his thoughts away.

On shore, Virgilio approached. He put his face near Patrick Jensen's. "You keep this big secret. Or I fuckin' kill you. "

"I have to keep it that way, don't I? I'm in it, too." Jensen kept his face close to the other's and his voice level. He had decided the only way to deal with Virgilio was not to be intimidated.

"Yeah," the big man conceded. "You in it, too."

"I want to talk to you privately sometime," Jensen said quietly. "Just the two of us."

Virgilio seemed surprised. His mind clearly working, he raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Yes," Jensen said, knowing a message had passed between them and was understood.

"I go Colombia," Virgilio said. "When I back, I find you. "

Jensen knew he would. He also knew he had found his killer.

* * *

A couple of Harley-Davidson riders, passing by in the early morning, were the first to see the wheelchair partly submerged. From Alabama Jack's, a popular bikers' bar a short distance ahead, they called 911, and Metro-Dade police responded. Two uniform officers and paramedics waded out from shore; the senior paramedic declared the man dead. Stewart Rice was readily identified from credit cards and papers on him. By this time the local news people, having heard police radio calls, arrived in full flood.

Dramatic pictures of the wheelchair being brought ashore, with the slumped figure still secured by ropes, appeared widely in newspapers and on TV. Unwittingly, this attention fulfilled the criminal objective providing a warning to others, especially the wheelchair vets. In the face of wide knowledge about their group and its methods, the drug vigilance ceased, as did tip-offs to the police antidrug task force.

"Too bad about Stewie," one task force member said to another soon after. "Somebody must have talked too much. Always happens."

* * *

Several days after the event, Jensen phoned Cynthia at her apartment to ask for a meeting. Before leaving the Bahamas, she had warned him they should not be seen together until their objective was accomplished, and for some time beyond. Therefore Jensen was not to come to the apartment, but should telephone her there and nowhere else, and they would arrange any absolutely necessary rendezvous at a place where neither was likely to be recognized. During the phone call, Cynthia instructed him to meet her the following Sunday in Boca Raton, a manageable drive, but well clear of Miami. She named Pete's Restaurant on Glades Road, where they were unlikely to encounter anyone who knew them.

Jensen arrived early and remained in his car until Cynthia appeared and parked nearby. He joined her and they entered the pleasant restaurant together, choosing an indoor verandah table, facing a lake and fountain, where they could talk privately. Cynthia ordered a Greek salad, Jensen the catch of the day without knowing what it was; the name somehow seemed appropriate. When their waiter had gone, he came directly to the point.

"I've found the man we need." He described Virgilio, and what had been revealed about the burly Colombian by his cronies at the Brass Doubloon.

"How do you know he " Cynthia began, but Jensen waved her down.

"There's more. I watched him operate." Lowering his voice, he began describing the events of a few days earlier, beginning with Card Sound Road. He had reached the point when the tradesman's van arrived, then the appearance of the wheelchair, when Cynthia, glaring, snapped across the table, "Shut up, goddam you!" Jensen paused and she added, "Don't tell me that. I don't want to know."

Patrick shrugged. "Well, you know now. The point is, Virgilio did the wheelchair murder. You must have heard about it."

"Of course I heard." Cynthia, angry and flushed, was breathing heavily. "You stupid idiot! You didn't have to tell me, and now forget you did. Wipe those last few minutes out."

"Okay, if you say so, but let me tell you this." Jensen paused as their food arrived. When the waiter had gone, he leaned forward, lowering his voice still more. "The point is, this guy Virgilio enjoys killing; I watched him that night. He's smart and not the slightest bit afraid."

Cynthia waited, still visibly disturbed, before asking, "Are you sure he'll contact you again?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. He's clearly gone to Colombia while things cool down, but he'll be back; that's when I'll talk to him about doing your parents. I know he'll do it. In the meantime we have to take care of some things. Cash, for one."

"I have it ready."

"Two hundred thousand?"

"That's the amount you said."

"And then the same for me."

Cynthia hesitated, then: "All right, but afterward."

"Fair enough."

More calmly now, she announced, "I have had an idea about the killings."

"Tell me."

"There have been two murders recently, one in Coconut Grove, another in Fort Lauderdale; both look as if they were done by the same person, with some odd features. Homicide thinks there may be more."

"What features?"

"At Coconut Grove it was at the Royal Colonial Hotel there were dead animals left at the scene."

"I read about the Royal Colonial, though nothing about dead animals."

"It was held back from the press."

"And Fort Lauderdale?"

"I don't remember exactly, but something similar." Cynthia reflected. "What I was thinking was that if my parents' killings could be made to look like those two . . ."

"I'm with you," Jensen said. "It would divert any suspicion, make it look like one more by the same person. Can you get more details?"

She nodded.

"Good. Then let's meet again two weeks from now."

They left the restaurant soon after, Cynthia settling their bill with cash.

* * *

Jensen's Volvo was behind Cynthia's BMW convertible as both turned onto I-95 for the return journey south to Miami. Cynthia drove faster and Jensen let her car disappear from sight, then took the next freeway exit and drove to a shopping area, where he parked.

Without leaving the car, he groped under his jacket and shirt. He removed a small tape recorder. He rewound the tape and, using a tiny earphone, listened. Despite their guardedly low voices, the recording was excellent. Every part was clear, including Cynthia's reaction when she learned the name of the wheelchair murderer, followed by their agreement on Virgilio as the man to kill her parents.

Jensen smiled. Cynthia, he mused, you are not the only one who can record incriminating conversations. He hoped never to have to use today's recording, but one thing was now certain. If something went wrong, if he was exposed and went down, he sure as hell would take Cynthia Ernst with him.

4

"Remember those two homicides I talked about last time?" Cynthia asked. "The one at Coconut Grove and - "

Jensen said edgily, "Of course I do. You were going to find out more."

"Well, I have."

It was the third week of June, two weeks after their liaison at Boca Raton. They had needed to get together again, though Cynthia's work schedule made a meeting in the Caymans or Bahamas impractical. Instead she chose Homestead, a small-town gateway to the Everglades, thirty-five miles south of Miami. They drove there separately, then met at Potlikkers restaurant.

The drive had left Jensen feeling tired; he had not slept well the night before, or for a succession of nights before that, either. And there had been nightmares the details vague, except they left him drenched with sweat, and in the hazy no-man's-land before waking, he recalled a wheelchair half-immersed and Virgilio's menacing face inches from his own.

Potlikkers' decor was rustic, and Jensen and Cynthia were seated on benches at a knotty pine table away from other diners. She had brought a small leather attache case and now set it beside her. She looked across at him. "Something wrong?"

"For Christ's sake! Is anything right?" He almost laughed, and considered saying, No, nothing's wrong. We're just meeting here to plot two murders for which we both have motives, in case you hadn't noticed, and some of the best brains in the detective business will be trying to solve them... They may even do it, and who knows? Maybe we'll be electrocuted side by side. . . But, no!. . . Apart from that, there's nothing wrong at all.

"Keep your voice down," Cynthia said. "And don't lose your nerve. There's no need, because everything is going to work remember, I'm in a position to judge that. Have you heard from your man, the guy you talked about? And don't use a name."

Jensen nodded. "Three days ago."

The long-distance call had come fifteen days after the wheelchair murder. There was no indication of where the call was coming from, and Patrick hadn't asked, but guessed it was Colombia.

"You know who I am, but do not say." The voice was clearly Virgilio's.

"Yes, I know."

"I come soon. You still want?"

"Yes." Obviously, Virgilio was using the fewest words possible. Jensen did the same.

"One week, maybe two. Okay?"

"Okay."

And that was the total exchange. After Jensen had described it, Cynthia asked, "You're sure your instinct's right? He understands what we want?"

"I'm sure. You don't arrange to meet his kind for lightweight jobs, and he knows it. So tell me about those other murders. The odd features isn't that what you called them?"

"Yes." A pause. "At Coconut Grove, four dead cats were left beside the victims."

"Four cats?" Jensen's voice was unbelieving.

"Don't ask me why because I don't know nor does anyone else. In Homicide they're still guessing."

"You said there was a similar case in Fort Lauderdale. What about that?"

"It's more complicated. The man's feet were burned, and no one knows why, except for a belief that both things were symbols in some killer's crazy mind."

"So what are you suggesting?"

"Copy the first one. Tell your man to take a dead animal and leave it."

"Not four cats, I hope."

Cynthia shook her head. "It should be the same but different, and one will do maybe a rabbit. It's just another symbol. Besides, there are other things."

"Such as?"

She described how, in both the Frost and Hennenfeld cases, the victims were found gagged and bound and facing each other. "And the murder weapon both times was a bowie knife. You know what that is?"

Jensen nodded. "I used it once in a story. Not hard to get. Next."

"Again at both murders a radio was playing loud. Hard rock."

"No sweat." Jensen was concentrating, memorizing; he would write none of this down, either now or later.

"Every bit of money that's there should be taken," Cynthia said. "My father always carries plenty and leaves it beside his bed. But my mother's jewelry must not be touched. That's how it was with those other scenes. Make that very clear."

"Shouldn't be difficult. Jewelry's identifiable and can be traced; I guess the other guy knew it, too."

"Now about the house," Cynthia said. "You may need this."

She passed a folded real-estate brochure across the table. It featured the Bay Point community, and as Jensen opened it, he saw a page displaying the layout of streets and lots. On one of them a house site was marked with an X.

"This is the . . . ?"

"Yes," Cynthia said, "and something else you should know is that there's a staff of three a butler and his wife, the Palacios; she also works and they both live in. A day maid comes in early and leaves at about four in the afternoon."

"So at night there are four people in the house?"

"Except on Thursdays. That's when the Palacios always go to West Palm Beach to visit Mrs. Palacio's sister. They leave by late afternoon and are never back before midnight, sometimes later."

Jensen's memory was loaded. "I might forget that. Let me get it right." He reached for the brochure and fumbled in his pocket for a pencil.

Cynthia clucked impatiently. "Give that to me." On the brochure she wrote:

D.maid - in early, leaves 4p.

P's - Thurs out late afternoon, back midnite

Pocketing the brochure, Jensen asked, "Anything else I should know about those other killings?"

"Yeah, they were messy." Cynthia grimaced as she described the knife slashes and body mutilations accompanying the Frost and Hennenfeld killings information she had obtained from Miami Homicide's files.

* * *

A few days earlier, during a weekday evening, Cynthia had walked from her own department to the Homicide offices. Senior of fleers from other departments often dropped into Homicide to chat and pick up stories about important cases; also, the coffee there was always good. Cynthia, as a former Homicide detective, frequently came and went, sometimes on Community Relations business.

She had chosen a time when the offices were quiet. Only two detectives were at their desks, along with Sergeant Pablo Greene, the senior officer present. After friendly greetings she told him, "I'd like to look at a file."

"Be my guest, Major." Greene waved airily to the file room. "You know where everything is, but call if you need help."

"I will," Cynthia said.

Alone inside the file room, she worked swiftly. Knowing where to look, she located the files for the Frost and Hennenfeld murders and took them to a table. The first file was large, but Cynthia quickly extracted two sets of notes, one by Bernard Quinn, who had been lead investigator, the other by Malcolm Ainslie as supervisor. Skimming both, she paused at usable information and transferred it to her own small notebook. Within minutes she closed the Frosts' file and opened the other. This was slim because it was not a Miami case, but had resulted from the visit of Sheriff-Detective Benito Montes of Fort Lauderdale. He had, however, supplied a copy of the original Offenseincident Report and supplementary notes that gave details.

After replacing both files, she returned to the main of lice and bid a friendly good night to Sergeant Greene and the other two detectives. Checking her watch, she saw she had been in Homicide barely twelve minutes, and no one knew which files she had reviewed.

Back in her own office, she studied and memorized the notes she had made, then tore out the notebook pages and flushed them down a toilet.

* * *

In the Homestead restaurant, while hearing of the brutality of the two double murders at Coconut Grove and Fort Lauderdale, Jensen decided that Virgilio would have no difficulty fulfilling that demand. The same applied to binding and gagging the victims and leaving them facing each other, which Cynthia specified as essential.

Weighing it all, Jensen mentally endorsed Cynthia's idea of imitating those two earlier crimes; in a perverted way, he thought, the concept was brilliant. Then he checked himself. In the way of life to which he had become committed, it was not perverted at all, but brilliant . . . period!

"You're doing a lot of thinking," Cynthia said from across the table.

He shook his head and lied. "Just memorizing all those ground rules."

"Add this to the list, then: no fingerprints."

"That won't be a problem." Jensen remembered Virgilio slipping on gloves before helping lift the wheelchair from the tradesman's van.

"There's one other thing," Cynthia said, "and this really is the last."

Jensen waited.

"Between the Coconut Grove murders and Fort Lauderdale's, there was a time gap of four months and twelve days; I worked it out."

"So?"

"Serial killers often strike pretty much at regular intervals, which means whoever did those two could pull off another, either during the last few days of September or the first week of October. I worked that out, too."

Jensen was puzzled. "How would that affect us?"

"We'll beat the bastard to it by setting our date in mid August. Then, if there's another of the same type of killing on one of those other dates, sure, there'll be an interval, but no one will think twice about it because the gaps won't seem a factor."

Cynthia stopped. "What's wrong? Why the long face?''

Jensen, who had looked increasingly doubtful, took a deep breath. "You want to know what I think?"

"I'm not sure I care, but go ahead if you want."

"Cyn, I think we're trying to be too clever."

"Which means?"

"The more we talk, the more I get the feeling that something can go wrong, terribly wrong.''

"So what are you suggesting?" Cynthia's tone was icy.

Jensen hesitated. Then, with conflicting emotions, knowing the significance of his own words, he answered, "That we quit, call the whole thing off. Here and now."

After a sip of a diet soda beside her, Cynthia asked softly, "Aren't you forgetting something?"

"I suppose you mean the money." Jensen passed his tongue across his lips as she nodded.

"I brought it with me to give to you." Cynthia touched the leather attache case on the seat beside her. "But never mind, I'll take it back." Picking up the case, she rose to leave, then paused, looking down at Jensen.

"I'll pay our bill on the way out. After all, you're going to need every last cent you have for a defense lawyer, and tomorrow I suggest you look for one. Or if you really can't afford it, you may have to take a public defender, though they're not very good, I'm afraid."

"Don't go!" He reached out to grasp her arm and said wearily, "Oh, for Christ's sake, sit down."

Cynthia returned to the bench but said nothing.

Jensen's voice was resigned. "Okay, if you want me to spell it out, I surrender . . . re-surrender. I know you hold all the aces, and I know you'd use them and never have a moment's regret. So let's go back to where we were."

Cynthia asked, "You're sure of that?"

He nodded submissively. "Sure."

"Then remember that the date for it all to happen must be as close as possible to mid-August." She was all business once more, as if the past few minutes had not occurred. "We won't meet again, not for a long time. You can phone me at the apartment, but keep it short and be careful what you say. And when you tell me the date, add five days to the real one and I'll subtract five. Is that clear?"

"It's clear."

"Now, is anything else on your mind?"

"One thing," Jensen answered. "All this conspiracy stuff has given me a raging hard-on. How about it?"

She smiled. "I can hardly wait. Let's get the hell out of here and find a motel."

As they left the restaurant together she said, "Oh, by the way, take good care of this." And passed him the leather case.

* * *

Despite Jensen's commitment to Cynthia and his acceptance of her money, doubts still plagued him. AIM the mention of seeking a lawyer kindled an idea.

Every Tuesday, Jensen played racquetball at Miami's Downtown Athletic Club along with another regular named Stephen Cruz. The two had met there and after many months shared an easy camaraderie on the court. Jensen had learned from other club members and media reports that Cruz was a successful criminal defense lawyer. One afternoon, while he and Cruz were showering after a tough, satisfying game, Jensen said on impulse, "Stephen, if a day ever came that I was in legal trouble and needed help, could I call on you?"

Cruz was startled. "Hey, I hope you haven't been doing anything . . ."

Jensen shook his head. "Nothing at all. It was only a passing thought."

"Well, of course, the answer's yes."

They left it there.

5

Two hundred thousand Dollars in cash exactly. Jensen had counted it in the bedroom of his apartment, not note by note, which would have taken too long, but by rifting through the various bundles and keeping a penciled tally as he progressed. The notes were all used, he was relieved to see, with denominations mixed. Hundred-Dollar bills were in the majority, and all were the new counterfeitproof hundreds introduced in 1996 another advantage, Jensen reasoned, aware that despite U.S. government propaganda claiming the old-type hundreds were mainly okay, many people and businesses declined to accept them since countless quantities worldwide were fake, and those who got stuck with them lost out.

Fifties were the next largest in number; no problem there, even though a new fifty-Doilar bill was due soon. And there were many bundles of twenties, though those took more space, but nothing smaller.

Jensen suspected that Cynthia had specified precisely the types of-bills the assortment was typical of her thoroughness and had brought them from the Cayman Islands, probably spread over several journeys there and back. Bringing more than ten thousand Dollars into the United States without making a customs declaration was technically illegal, but Cynthia had once told him that U.S. Customs in Miami seldom bothered Miami police officers, especially senior officers, if they discreetly showed an identification badge.

Cynthia, of course, had no idea that Jensen knew about her Caymans wealth. Four years ago, however, when they had been together in her Grand Cayman hotel room, Cynthia, complaining of an upset stomach, had excused herself and gone to the bathroom. Jensen had seized the opportunity to open a briefcase she had left in view. Searching quickly through the papers inside, he had come across a Cayman bank statement showing a credit in Cynthia's name of more than five million Dollars, at which he whistled softly. There was also a letter from someone called Uncle Zack certifying that a recent deposit was a gift, and some other papers clipped together indicated that Cynthia had informed the IRS about the account and had paid taxes on the interest. Pretty smart, Jensen thought.

Without knowing what use he could make of the information, or if it would ever have any use, he pulled out a notebook and swiftly wrote down basics; he would have liked to make copies, but there wasn't time. What he had, though, were essentials the name of the Cayman bank, an account number, and the latest balance; Cynthia's tax consultant's name, with a Fort Lauderdale address; an IRS letter with date and reference, and who had signed it; and, for what it was worth, the name "Uncle Zack." Later Jensen removed the page from his notebook, dated and signed it, and preserved it carefully.

Jensen had another thought about Cynthia's Cayman bounty an instinct, really which came to him in stages: she didn't think of it as real money and would probably never use it for herself; therefore she would not be overly concerned about how much went out and who received it. He was sure, for instance, that she suspected Jensen had lied to her about the amount needed to pay Virgilio, and that he intended to keep some of that money himself in addition to the large sum afterward that Cynthia had agreed to pay him personally.

Jensen was cheating, of course, and had no intention of offering Virgilio more than eighty thousand Dollars to do the Ernst killings, though he might go to a hundred thousand if he had to. As he thought about it all while putting the bills back in the attache case, Jensen smiled. And his upbeat feeling continued, effectively banishing the doubts and fears he had felt at the Homestead restaurant.

* * *

Five days later, shortly after 7:00 P.M., a buzzer sounded in Jensen's third-floor apartment on Brickell Avenue. The buzzer was actuated from a push-button panel outside the main entrance below. Using an intercom system, he responded, "Yes, who is it?" There was no answer, and he repeated the question. After a second silence, he shrugged and turned away.

A few minutes later the same process was repeated. Jensen was irritated but thought nothing of it; sometimes neighborhood kids played with the buzzer system. A third time, though, it occurred to him that someone was sending a message, so it was with slight unease that he left the apartment and went downstairs. But apart from a fellow tenant who was entering the main door, no one was in sight.

Jensen had parked his Volvo on the street outside, and on impulse he left the building and walked toward it. As he did so, he was startled to see a figure filling the front passenger seat; moments later he realized it was Virgilio. Jensen had locked the car before leaving it, and now, using a key to open the driver-side door, he was about to ask, "How the hell did you get in?" then changed his mind. Virgilio had already demonstrated he was a person of apt talents.

Motioning with an enormous hand, the Colombian instructed, "Drive."

Behind the wheel, and with the motor running, Jensen asked, "Anywhere special?"

"Someplace quiet."

For about ten minutes Jensen drove aimlessly, then turned into the parking area of a closed hardware store, turned off the engine and lights, and waited.

"You talk," Virgilio ordered. "You have job for me?"

"Yes." Patrick saw no reason not to come directly to the point. "I have friends who want two people killed."

"Who your friends?"

"You will not know. That way, it is safer for everyone."

"Okay." Virgilio nodded. "The ones to die important people?"

"Yes. One is a city commissioner."

"Then cost much money."

"I will pay you eighty thousand Dollars," Jensen said.

"No good." The Colombian shook his head vigorously. "Much more. One hunnert fifty."

"I don't have that much. I could maybe get one hundred thousand, but no more."

"Then no deal." Virgilio put his hand on the car door as if to leave, then stopped. "One hunnert twenty. Half now, half when job done."

The haggling had gone far enough, Jensen thought, regretting that he hadn't started at a lower figure, like fifty thousand. Still, even a hundred and twenty left eighty thousand for himself, plus the subsequent payment Cynthia had promised, and he knew she would keep her word.

"I'll have the sixty thousand ready in two days," he said. "You can call me the same way you did tonight."

The big man grunted his agreement, then gestured to the car's steering wheel. "Where those people live? You show me."

Why not? Jensen reasoned. Starting the engine again, he drove to Biscayne Boulevard and Bay Point, stopping short of the exclusive community's security checkpoint.

"The house is inside that fenced area," he reported. "You can be sure the fence has an alarm system, and there are security guards."

"I find way in. You have map showing house?"

Jensen opened the car's glove compartment, where he had placed a copy of the real-estate brochure Cynthia had given him five days earlier. The original he had kept himself, storing it in a safe location. He pointed to the page that showed the Bay Point streets, the lot marked X, and bearing Cynthia's handwritten note:

D.maid - in early, leaves 4p.

P's - Thurs out late afternoon, back midnite

"That's important," Jensen said, and explained the maid's working hours and the once-a-week absences of the butler and his wife.

"Good!" Virgilio pocketed the brochure. He had screwed up his face while listening, clearly concentrating to memorize everything, and twice had asked for information to be repeated, nodding his understanding when it was. Jensen reminded himself that whatever else Virgilio might be, he was intelligent. 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, 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 twenty-second."

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 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. 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 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, Cynthia 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.

"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 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 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."

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?"

"Sure.'' Paige gestured behind her. "Use the den. When you're finished, call me. I'll have coffee ready."

As she and McGowan sat down, Cynthia said, "You sound serious, Win. Is something wrong?" Behind the casual question her mind was working, replaying Max Cormick's words at Universal Studios. You don't think about acting ever. If you do, it shows . . .

"Yes," McGowan said, answering her question. "I have some bad news, very bad news. Cynthia, you've got to prepare yourself."

"I am prepared. Just tell me!" Her voice was anxious. Then, as if she had a sudden thought, "Is it my parents?"

McGowan nodded slowly. "It is your parents . . . the worst possible. .."

"Oh, no! Are they . . ." Cynthia stopped, as if unwilling to complete the sentence.

"Yes, my dear. I wish there were some other way to tell you this, but . . . I'm afraid they are both dead."

Cynthia put her hands to her face and shrieked. Then she cried out, "Paige! Paige!"

When Paige appeared, running, Cynthia screamed, "Paige, it's my mom and dad. . ." As her friend's arms enfolded her, she turned her face toward McGowan. "Is it . . . was it . . . an accident?"

He shook his head. "No accident." Then he said, "Cynthia, let's take this slowly. There's just so much a human being can handle. Right now I think you've had enough."

Paige nodded agreement, her arms tightly around Cynthia. "Sweetie, I beg you! Take it easy. Take your time."

It was another fifteen minutes before Cynthia as her new self in a new scenario absorbed the few details known so far about her parents' murders.

* * *

From that point on, she merely let things happen. Winslow McGowan and Paige were presuming Cynthia to be in a state of shock, an assumption she supported by her dazed, obedient behavior. McGowan, who had been joined by two more uniform officers who were making phone calls, told her quietly, "We're arranging to get you home. I've canceled your remaining lectures, and you're booked on a nonstop Miami flight early this afternoon. A department car will take you to the airport."

Paige chimed in, "And I'm traveling with you, Cyn. Wouldn't dream of letting you go alone. I'll go pack your bags. Is that okay?"

Cynthia nodded compliantly, murmuring, "Thank you." It would be useful to have a companion for the journey, though she wouldn't want Paige around for long in Miami, she decided.

Lying full length on a couch to which she had been steered, Cynthia closed her eyes, separating herself from the activity around her.

At last, she reflected, her parents were dead, and after long years of waiting, the objective she had planned so carefully was accomplished. So why didn't she feel the euphoria she had anticipated, but only, instead, a curious flatness? Perhaps, she thought, it was because no one other than she and Patrick Jensen would ever know the truth the reason for the murders or her ingenious planning behind it.

Still, she did not for a moment regret her decision. Such an ending was necessary, a need that had to be fulfilled to redress the wrong done to her. It was a suitable retribution for the loathsome, despicable way in which Gustav and Eleanor Ernst had treated her as a child, making Cynthia in so many ways the person she had become. A person whom she acknowledged that at times she didn't like.

Ah! There was a vital question: Would she have been different, could she have been, if it were not for the rage and hatred instilled in her by her father's perverted abuse and her mother's hypocritical inaction . . . those all-consuming hatreds that had never gone away? Of course!. . . Yes! . . . She would have been a different person . . . less strong, perhaps . . . kinder, maybe. Who knew? But in any case, the question was irrelevant half a lifetime too late! The mold that shaped Cynthia was broken long ago. She was what she was now, and would not could not change...

Her eyes were still closed when Paige's soft voice filtered through her ruminations. "Cyn, everything's taken care of. We leave for the airport in a few hours. Maybe for a while you should go back to bed and sleep."

Gratefully she did. Later, the eastward journey thanks to Paige passed uneventfully.

* * *

Before arriving in Miami, Cynthia discreetly rubbed a few grains of salt into her eyes. It was a subterfuge she had learned years ago during the same school dramatics she had spoken of to Max Cormick, and the effect was to produce tears and red-rimmed eyes. During the days that followed Cynthia shed no genuine tears, but more salt and residual red eyes helped.

Apart from that pretense of grief, from her moment of arrival onward, Cynthia let it be known that her strength and composure had returned, and set out to learn whatever was known about her parents' murders. Her own police status, providing immediate access to all units of the Police Department, made that simple.

On her second day back, Cynthia visited her parents' mansion in Bay Point, now encircled by yellow police tape. Inside a main-floor drawing room she talked with Sergeant Brewmaster, in charge of the Homicide investigation.

His first words on seeing her were, "Major, I want to say how terrible we all feel . . ." but she stopped him with a gesture.

"Hank, I appreciate that, and I'm grateful. But if I hear too much of it, especially from an old friend like you, I might break down. Please understand."

Brewmaster said, "Yes, I do, ma'am. And I promise we'll do every last thing we can to nail the bastard who . . ." His own voice, choking too, trailed off.

"I want to hear everything you know," Cynthia told him. "From what I've heard already, I gather you see my parents' deaths as some kind of serial killings."

Brewmaster nodded. "It does look that way, a definite pattern, though there are slight differences." That jackass Patrick, she thought. "First, though, have you heard about the Homicide conference two days ago just before your parents' deaths when Malcolm Ainslie linked four earlier double murders with the Bible and the book of Revelation?"

She shook her head, a slight anxiety stirring.

"When we started looking at those four cases," Brewmaster continued, "laying the details out, there were what you'd call symbols left at each scene. It was Malcolm because he knows about that stuff from being a priest who recognized what they meant."

Cynthia looked confused. "You keep saying four double murders. I thought there were only two previous ones that seemed to match."

"Well, there was another one the Urbinas in Pine Terrace also like those others, and only three days before your parents' deaths. And even before that, there turned out to be one more we hadn't heard about." Brewmaster described Ruby Bowe's revelation, at the Homicide conference, of the overlooked BOLO from Clearwater and the similar slayings there of Hal and Mabel Larsen. "Those Clearwater killings happened about midway between the Frost and Hennenfeld cases."

Alarm bells rang in Cynthia's head. Clearly, in the short time she had been away a great deal had changed changes unforeseen. Her mind was in turmoil. She had to update quickly.

"You said there were differences about my parents' murders. What did you mean?"

"First thing, whoever the perp was, he left a dead rabbit behind. Malcolm thinks it doesn't fit, though I'm not sure I agree."

Cynthia waited.

Brewmaster continued, "At those other crime scenes, everything fitted in with Revelation and the theory that the killer is some kind of religious freak. But according to Malcolm, the rabbit isn't specific, the way the other symbols were. But as I said, I'm not so sure."

Leaving a rabbit, Cynthia thought bleakly, had been her own idea. At the time no one, even in Homicide, had the slightest notion what any of those earlier symbols meant, and it was still that way when she left for Los Angeles.

"Something else really different is the time frame," Brewmaster went on. "Between each of the other serial killings there was a gap of about two months never less than two. But between the Urbinas and the Ernsts sorry, your folks just three days." He shrugged. "Of course, it may mean nothing. Serial killers don't operate on logic."

No. Cynthia thought, but even serial killers had to plan, and as little as three days from one double killing to the next was not convincing . . . Goddam! Of all the wrong timing and bad luck! Her careful calculations had been totally thrown off by the extra Clearwater case. She remembered Patrick's words at Homestead: Cyn, I think we're trying to be too clever.

"Those fourth killings," she asked Brewmaster. "What did you say the names were?"

"Urbinas."

"Did the case get much attention?''

"The usual. Front pages of the newspapers, plenty on TV.'7 It was Brewmaster's turn to be curious. "What makes you ask?"

"Oh, I didn't hear anything in L.A. Guess I was too busy." It was a weak response, Cynthia knew, and realized she must be wary when dealing with super-sharp Homicide detectives. Brewmaster's answer, though, suggested Patrick must have known about the Urbina murders; therefore, somehow, he ought to have postponed the Ernst killings. But most likely Patrick had no way to get in touch with the Colombian, and the die was cast. . .

Brewmaster broke in on her thoughts. "There were other things right in line with the serial killings, ma'am." His tone was respectful, as if half apologizing for his query moments ago. "All of your father's cash was taken, but your mother's jewelry was untouched; I checked that carefully. And something else, though I don't like mentioning this . . ."

"Go on," Cynthia said. "I think I know what's coming."

"Well, the wounds inflicted were pretty much like the ones in the earlier cases . . . are you sure you want to hear this?"

"I have to know sometime. It might as well be now."

"The wounds were real bad; the MO says a bowie knife was used again. And the victims. . ." Again Brewmaster hesitated. "They were bound and gagged and facing each other."

Cynthia turned away and applied a handkerchief to her eyes. On it were still a few grains of salt from a previous application; she used them before turning back, coughing slightly.

"One more thing that was like those other cases," Brewmaster added, "is that a radio was left on loud."

Cynthia nodded. "I remember that. At those two first scenes, wasn't it rock?"

"Yes." Brewmaster consulted a notebook. "This time it was WTMI classical and show-biz music. The butler said it was your mother's favorite station."

"Yes, it was." Silently, Cynthia cursed. Despite her precise instructions to Patrick, his Colombian killer had turned the radio on, but failed to change the station to rock music. Maybe he didn't get the full instructions; either way, it was too late. At this moment, Brewmaster didn't seem to think the difference was important, though others in Homicide might when making a thorough study; Cynthia knew how the system worked.

Goddam! Suddenly, unexpectedly, she felt a shiver of fear run through her.

7

Cynthia did not sleep well during her third night back in Miami, still nervous after learning of developments unexpected yet significant during her brief absence. Now, she wondered, what else could go wrong?

Also on her mind was the fact that she needed to meet with Malcolm Ainslie especially since Ainslie was head of a special task force set up to deal with the current series of serial murders, in which her parents' deaths were included. Thus, while Hank Brewmaster remained in immediate charge of the Ernst investigation, the overall responsibility was Ainslie's.

Though uneasy about a meeting with Ainslie at this point, she knew it had to happen. Otherwise it might appear as if she was avoiding him, leaving her motives open to question, particularly by Ainslie himself.

What it came down to, Cynthia realized in a moment of private honesty, was that Ainslie was the Homicide investigator she feared the most. Despite her bitter anger when he broke off their affair, and her determination to keep the promise she had made You'll regret this, Malcolm, for the rest of your miserable life she had never for one moment changed her view that, of all the detectives she had known, Ainslie was the best. She was never sure exactly why. Somehow, though, Malcolm had an ability to look beyond the immediate aspects of any investigation and put his own mind inside the minds of both the victims and suspects. The result was and Cynthia had seen it happen he often reached the right conclusions about Homicide cases, either alone or ahead of everyone else.

The other detectives in Homicide, particularly the younger ones, had sometimes looked on Malcolm as an oracle and sought his advice, not only about crimes but about their own personal lives. Detective Bernard Quinn, now retired, had made a collection of what he called "Ainslie Aphorisms" and tacked them up on a notice board. Cynthia remembered a few. One or two seemed appropriate now:

We catch people because no one is ever as clever as he or she thinks.

Mostly, small mistakes don't matter. But with murder, it only takes a tiny mistake to leave a hole for someone to peer through and learn the truth.

Educated people think they have an edge in cleverness, but sometimes that extra education makes them overreach and get caught.

All of us do foolish things sometimes the most obvious and we wonder later how we could have been so stupid

The most skillful liars sometimes say too much.

Criminals seldom remember Murphy's Law: If something can go wrong, it wilL Which is a big help to detectives.

Ainslie's background, Cynthia supposed - the priesthood and his erudition - contributed to all that, and clearly, from what Hank Brewmaster had described, that same facility solved the linkage between those bizarre objects left at the serial crime scenes.

Cynthia pushed the memories away. Until the present she had never thought of Malcolm's intellect as affecting her personally. Now she did.

She decided not to delay a meeting, but to stage it immediately, on her own terms. Early in the morning after her restless night, Cynthia arrived at Homicide, where she commandeered Lieutenant Newbold's office and left word that Sergeant Ainslie should report to her as soon as possible. He arrived soon after, having stopped at the Ernst house on his way.

Having made clear the difference in authority between them a major was three ranks higher than a sergeant and that no shred of a personal relationship remained, Cynthia had posed sharp questions about her parents' murders.

Even while probing and listening to answers, she was aware of Malcolm's appraisal and welcomed it. From the way he looked at her, she knew he had noticed her especially red-rimmed eyes. His facial expression reflected sympathy. Good! So her grief at her parents' deaths was evident, and Malcolm did not doubt it; therefore objective number one had been achieved.

A second objective was to make her official authority so strong and demanding, with insistence on a speedy solution to her parents' killings, that it would simply not occur to Ainslie that she could be involved in any culpable way. As the interview progressed, Cynthia knew she had succeeded.

Toward the end she was conscious of a wariness on Malcolm's part when she questioned him about the symbols he had linked to Revelation. She also suspected that he did not intend to keep her as fully informed about all special task force developments as she demanded. But she decided not to press too far, having handled what could have been an uneasy confrontation with so much advantage to herself.

Finally, as the door closed behind Ainslie, Cynthia reflected that perhaps she had overestimated his talents after all.

* * *

The elaborately formal funeral for Gustav and Eleanor Ernst, with all the trappings of officialdom, was preceded by a wake the day before, lasting eight hours and attended by an estimated nine hundred people. The entire two-day observance was something Cynthia knew she had to go through, though she longed for it all to be over. Her role was to behave as a bereaved daughter, yet maintain a composure and dignity befitting her senior police rank. From overheard remarks, and condolences addressed to her, she knew at the end she had succeeded rather well.

One conversation occurring during the wake would, she hoped, have an ongoing effect. It was with two people whom she knew well: Miami's Mayor Lance Karlsson and City Commissioner Orestes Quintero, one of the two remaining commissioners. She had met both frequently before. The mayor, a retired industrialist, normally jovial, spoke sadly of Cynthia's father, adding, "We shall miss Gustav greatly." Quintero, younger and heir to a liquor fortune, nodded agreement. "It will be difficult to replace him. He understood the city's workings so well."

"I know," Cynthia replied. "I only wish there were some way I could pick up where he left off."

She saw the two men glance at each other. A thought clearly struck both; the mayor gave the slightest of nods. "I should talk to some other people; please excuse me," Cynthia said. As she moved away, she knew she had effectively planted a seed.

At both the wake and the funeral she saw Ainslie several times. He was second-in-command of the police honor guard and looked smart in dress uniform, something she had not seen him in before. Gold aiguillettes and white gloves heightened the ceremonial impact. She learned from another honor guard officer that at every free moment, in a rear room, Ainslie was on the radio, communicating with his special task force surveillance teams, now maintaining a twenty-four-hour watch on six possible suspects in the serial killings.

After their earlier meeting, Cynthia was unsure how to treat Ainslie, and simply ignored him.

* * *

A day after the funeral, Cynthia was at her desk in Community Relations when she received a phone call that the caller described as confidential. She listened for a few moments, then answered, "Thank you. My answer is yes."

Twenty-four hours later the Miami City Commission, headed by Mayor Karlsson, announced that, as permitted by city charter, Cynthia Ernst had been named to complete the remaining two years in her father's elected term as a commissioner.

The next day Cynthia announced her resignation from the Miami police force.

* * *

As more days passed, and Cynthia assumed her new responsibilities, she felt increasingly secure. Then, two and a half months later, one of the suspects who had been under special task force surveillance, Elroy Doil, was arrested and charged with murder. The arrest was at the murder scene of Kingsley and Nellie Tempone, with "Animal" Doil's guilt conclusive, and from additional evidence it was believed by police, the media, and the public that he was guilty of all the preceding serial killings.

Only one factor clouded the successful end to the task force's operation. That was a decision by State Attorney Adele Montesino that Doil would be tried for only one double murder the Tempones' where, in Montesino's words, "we'll have a cast-iron prosecution" and an "airtight certain case." In the remaining cases, she pointed out, the evidence, while strong, was less conclusive.

The decision had provoked protests from the families of other serial killing victims, in which Commissioner Cynthia Ernst joined, wanting Doil to be convicted of her parents' murders, too. But in the end it made no difference. Doil denied doing any of the murders, including the Tempones', despite his presence at the murder scene. A jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to die in the electric chair a process speeded up by Doil's own decision not to exercise his rights of appeal.

* * *

During the seven months between Animal Doil's sentencing and his scheduled execution, something happened to provide an unnerving shock to Cynthia Ernst.

Amid the increasing activity of her new life as a city commissioner, a thought occurred to her one day out of nowhere, it seemed that a task she had intended to complete a long time ago had never been done. Incredibly, she had forgotten the box of evidence, put together the same night that Patrick admitted having shot and killed Naomi and Kilburn Holmes. What she needed to do, Cynthia now realized in fact, ought to have done long ago was dispose of that box and its contents, completely and forever.

She knew exactly where the box was stored. After carefully taping and sealing it at her own apartment, she had taken it to her parents' house and her private room.

Although, since her parents' deaths, the Ernst house had been mostly unoccupied, Cynthia had left it pretty much as it was, waiting until Gustav's and Eleanor's wills were finally probated before deciding whether to sell it or even, perhaps, move into Bay Point herself. In the end she alone would decide because she was the major beneficiary under both her parents' wills. Occasionally, Cynthia used the house for entertaining and continued to employ the butler, Theo Palacio, and his wife, Maria, as caretakers.

Cynthia chose the following Wednesday to take the action so long overdue. She told her secretary, Ofelia, to reschedule her appointments for that day and not to make any others. At first she considered moving the box to a public incinerator, then learned that many had closed for environmental reasons, and at the few remaining it was no longer possible for an individual to throw an object in a furnace personally. Unwilling to trust anyone else, she returned to her original idea of deep-sixing the box.

She knew a charter boat owner who had done jobs for her father in the past a closemouthed, surly ex-U.S. Marine with the reputation of operating on the borders of legitimacy, but who was reliable. Cynthia phoned him, learned he was available on the chosen date, then instructed, "I shall want your boat all day and will be coming with a friend, but there's to be no crew except you." After grumbling about having to do everything himself, the boat owner agreed.

The statement about a friend was a lie. Cynthia had no intention of bringing anyone, and she would only retain the boat for as long as it took to reach deep water, throw the box overboard by then inside a metal trunk and return to shore. She would pay for a full-day cruise, however, which would keep the owner quiet. She also knew of an out-of-the-way store where she could buy a suitable trunk, paying with cash the day before.

Having made her decisions, Cynthia drove to Bay Point and went to her room. Remembering exactly where she had left the box, she moved other items to get to it. To her surprise, it wasn't there. Obviously her memory was faulty, she decided. She continued to move everything, finally emptying the entire cupboard, but no question about it the sealed box was gone. Her concern, which she had deliberately suppressed, suddenly escalated.

Don't panic! It's somewhere in the house. . . has to be . . . it's natural not to find it immediately after all this time. . . so stop, think, consider where else to look . . . But after searching through other rooms and cupboards, iricluding what had been her parents' rooms, she was no further ahead.

Eventually she used an intercom and summoned Theo Palacio to the top floor. He appeared quickly.

When she described the missing box, Palacio responded at once. "I remember seeing it, Miss Ernst. The police took it, along with a lot of other things. It was the day after. . ." He stopped and shook his head sadly. "I think it was the second day the police were here."

She said, "You didn't tell me!"

The butler spread his hands helplessly. "So much was happening. And it being the. police, I thought you'd know."

* * *

The facts emerged piecemeal.

As Theo Palacio explained, "The police had a search warrant. One of the detectives showed it to me, said they wanted to go through the house, look at everything."

Cynthia nodded. It was normal procedure, but something else she had not foreseen despite her careful planning.

"Well," Palacio continued, "among what they found were boxes and boxes of papers a lot of it your mother's and from what I understood, the detectives couldn't look at it all here, so they took the whole lot away to go through somewhere else. They went around the house, piling up the boxes and sealing them, and one of the boxes was yours. It was already sealed; I think that's why they took it."

"Didn't you tell anyone the box belonged to me?"

"To tell the truth, Miss Ernst, I didn't think of it. As I said, a lot was going on; Maria and I were so upset. If I did wrong, I'm - "

Cynthia cut him off. "Leave it!" Her mind was calculating swiftly.

A year and two months had passed since her parents' deaths; therefore the crucial box had been removed for that long. So whatever had happened to it, one thing was certain: it had not been opened, or she would have heard. Cynthia was also pretty sure that she knew where the box was.

* * *

Back in her City Commission office, after canceling arrangements for the boat, she willed herself to be objective. There were occasions when ultra-calm was needed, and this was one. For a moment at the Bay Point house she had almost given way to despair provoked by horror at the incredibly foolish thing she had done, or rather had failed to do. One of Ainslie's Aphorisms came back to her: All of us do foolish things - sometimes the most obvious - and we wonder later how we could have been so stupid.

First things first.

Her discovery had raised two vital questions, the first already answered: the box had not been opened. The second: Was it likely to remain unopened? Of course, she could sit back and hope the answer would be yes. But sitting back was not Cynthia's style.

She consulted a phone list and dialed the number of the Miami Police Property Department. An operator answered.

"This is Commissioner Ernst. Captain Iacone, please."

"Yes, ma'am."

A moment later, "Good afternoon, Commissioner. It's Wade Iacone; what can I do for you?"

"I'd like to come to see you, Wade." Each knew the other well from Cynthia's time in Homicide. "When would be convenient?"

"For you, any time."

She arranged to be at Property in an hour.

* * *

The Property Department, within the main Police building, was, as always, bustling, noisy, with active staff sworn and civilian all cataloging, arranging, and safeguarding a jam-packed depository of countless miscellaneous items, ranging from huge to minuscule and, in value, from precious to worthless. The only common denominator was the fact that everything was connected with a crime and might be required as evidence. Within the department a series of large storerooms seemingly were filled to capacity, yet a

relentless stream of new objects was somehow squeezed in each day.

Captain Iacone met Cynthia and escorted her to his tiny office. Space in Property was at a premium, even for its commander.

When they were seated, Cynthia began, "When my parents were killed..." then paused as Iacone, a longtime veteran, shook his head sadly.

"I could hardly believe it at the time. I was so sorry."

"It's still hard to come to terms with.'' Cynthia sighed. "But with the case closed now, and Doil being executed soon . . . Well, there are some things I have to do, and one of them is recover a lot of my parents' papers that were taken from our house over a year ago, and some may be stored here."

"There was something. I don't remember exactly, but I'll check." Iacone swung around, facing a computer terminal on his desk, and typed a name and instruction. Instantly a column of figures appeared on the monitor.

The Property chief nodded. "Yes, we do have some things from your parents quite a lot. It's coming back to me now."

"I know how much flows through here. I'm surprised you remember at all."

"Well, it was an important case; we were all concerned about it. It was all boxes, and the detectives said they'd take them out when they could and search through them." Iacone glanced back at the computer. "I guess they never did. "

Curiosity made Cynthia ask, "Any idea why?"

"The way I heard, there were a lot of pressures at the time. A twenty-four-hour surveillance was on for the serial killer; there was a shortage of working bodies, so no one had time to search through boxes. Then the serial guy was caught."

"Yes."

"Which meant the case was wound up, and no one bothered with the boxes."

Cynthia smiled warmly. "Does it mean I can have them back? There were some personal papers of my parents'."

"I should think so. In fact I'd like to clear the space." Iacone glanced at the numbers on the computer, then rose. "Let's go take a look."

* * *

"If anyone gets lost in here," Iacone said, grinning, "we send out search parties."

They were in one of the warehouse areas, where boxes and packages were piled from the floor to a ceiling high above. Aisles between piles were narrow and meandered like a maze. But everything in sight was numbered. "Whatever we're looking for," Iacone explained, "we can find it in minutes." He stopped and pointed. "Here are the boxes from your parents."

There were two piles, Cynthia saw, a dozen or more stout containers, all sealed with tape bearing the printed words CRIME SCENE EVIDENCE. Then, near the top of the second pile, she caught a glimpse of a box with some blue sealing tape protruding from beneath the official layer. Found it! she thought, recognizing the tape.

Now, how to get that box out.

"So, can I take all this away?" She motioned to the pile. "I'll sign whatever's needed."

"Sorry!" Iacone shook his head. "I'm afraid it isn't that simple, though not so difficult, either. What I need, to let you have everything, is a signed release from whoever brought the evidence in."

"Who was that?"

"On the computer it showed Sergeant Brewmaster. But Malcolm Ainslie could sign; he was in charge of the task force. Or Lieutenant Newbold. You know all three, so any one of them."

Cynthia considered carefully; she had hoped her own authority as a commissioner would suffice. As for asking any of the trio named, she would have to think about it.

On the way out, as if chatting casually, she asked, "Does most of this stuff here stay around a long time?"

"Too damn long," Iacone complained. "That's my biggest problem."

"What's the oldest evidence stored?"

"I honestly don't know. But plenty has been around for twenty years, some of it for more."

Even as Iacone was speaking, Cynthia made her decision about asking for a signed release. She wouldn't. Brewmaster would have been the easiest to approach, but still might ask questions. Newbold would almost certainly check with the other two. As for Ainslie . . . he was the creative thinker; he could see through veneers.

On the other hand, if she did nothing the boxes might stay here undisturbed for twenty years or more. So, for the time being, she would leave everything, including the critical evidence box, well enough alone and take her chances.

For the longer future - though not all that distant when she thought about it - Cynthia had something else in mind.

She planned to become Miami's next mayor.

The incumbent mayor, Karlsson, had let it be known that when his present term expired in two more years he would not seek reelection. When she heard this, Cynthia made her decision to succeed him. One, possibly two, of the other commissioners might be mayoral candidates, but she believed she could take on anyone and win. The time was right for women to be elected to almost anything; nowadays even men were dissatisfied with other men in public office. Looking at males in the highest places, including the United States Oval Office, the question was increasingly being asked: Is that really the best the system can produce?

As mayor, Cynthia would have exceptional influence in the Police Department. Among other major matters, the mayor could sway decisions about who would be the next chief of police, and who else would move up in the topmost ranks. The role created automatic deference, and with that kind of authority she foresaw a time when she could get those packages including the one out of Property without the slightest difficulty.

So let it ride for now.

"Thanks for everything, Wade," she told Iacone as he escorted her out.

* * *

During the three and a half months between that time and the scheduled execution of Elroy Doil, Cynthia felt herself grow increasingly more anxious. The fact was, she realized as the weeks and days moved by with excruciating slowness, that only with Doil's death in the electric chair would there be assurance that the twelve serial killings attributed to him would become permanently closed cases. It was true that Doil had been tried and convicted only for the Tempones' murder, but it seemed certain that no one who mattered doubted he was guilty also of all the others, including the slayings of Gustav and Eleanor Ernst.

So, who did know that Doil did not commit one pair of murders?

Cynthia asked herself that question while alone in her apartment late one night. The answer: she herself, Patrick Jensen, and the Colombian. That was all; just three.

Well . . . strictly speaking, four, if you included Doil himself, she reasoned. Though it made no difference, really, because whatever he said, no one would believe him. At Doil's trial he'd denied absolutely everything small things that didn't matter, and even his well-established presence at the Tempones' house, where he was actually caught and apprehended.

And something else: As far as Doil's execution was concerned, she was not allowing an innocent man to go to his death by keeping quiet and doing nothing. Doil was as guilty as hell of all those other murders and deserved the electric chair. It was simply that since he was chairdestined anyway, he might just as well do Cynthia and Patrick a favor by carrying their load, too. Too bad they couldn't say thank you!

"But there's many a slip . . ." Impatiently, Cynthia kept reminding herself of the cliche, wanting to get the execution over and move forward to a new time.

For some while now Cynthia had been meeting Patrick Jensen at intervals again, socially and for sex, and in these final weeks she had been seeing him even more frequently. Instinct told her that it wasn't entirely wise, but there were times when she felt the need of company, and there was no one else with whom she could relax so completely. They were two of a kind, she knew, both being aware that the survival of each depended on the other.

It was that kind of thinking that made Cynthia decide she wanted Patrick with her at Florida State Prison for the execution, which she had arranged to attend with approval from the prison governor. There were two reasons for her presence: she was the closest relative of two of Doil's presumed victims, and her status as a Miami city commissioner gave her preference. When she broached the idea to Patrick, he immediately agreed. "We have a vested interest in seeing the guy snuffed out. Besides, I can use the scene in a book."

So she had called the governor a second time, and despite the difficulty of witnessing an execution there was a three-year waiting list because of Cynthia's influence, Jensen was included.

There were moments when Cynthia worried about Patrick's deepening depression. Over the years she had known him, he had always been a thinker, which went with being a writer, she supposed, but nowadays he brooded more than ever. Once when they were talking he quoted Robert Frost gloomily:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

"Frost was right about a difference," Patrick pronounced. "Except for him it meant the right road. Me, I took the wrong one, and from that road you don't ever get back."

Cynthia asked, "You're not getting religion, are you?"

For a change, Patrick laughed. "Not likely! Anyway, that's a last resort after getting caught."

"Don't talk about getting caught!" she snapped. "You won't be, especially after..." Though she stopped, they both knew she was referring to Doil's execution, now only days away.

* * *

It was a paradox, Cynthia thought, to feel relief on entering the grimness of a prison, but she did, knowing that the moment she had waited for was approaching fast, and at 6:12 A.M. she checked her watch less than an hour away. Earlier the twenty execution witnesses, mostly welldressed strangers, had assembled at the nearby town of Starke and been driven by bus to the State Prison. On the way, there had been little conversation, and now the group was filing through heavy steel gates and past a fortresslike control room. Patrick was beside her when Cynthia saw two figures off to one side; they had halted to allow the line of witnesses to pass.

One of the figures was a prison officer, the other... Malcolm!

The shock was like a sudden, ice-cold shower.

Questions raced through Cynthia's mind. What is he doing here? There could be only one answer: He had come to see Doil before he died! Why?

She caught Patrick's eye; he had seen Ainslie, too, and she guessed he had reached the same conclusion. But there was no time to talk; escorts were hurrying the witness group on.

Cynthia was sure that Malcolm had seen her as well, but their eyes had not met. She continued onward with the others, her thoughts tumultuous. Assuming there was a deathwatch meeting between Malcolm Ainslie and Doil, what would be its substance? Could Ainslie still have doubts about Doil committing the Ernst murders? Was that why he was here to find out in these final minutes of Doil's life whatever else he could? He definitely had that kind of mind and persistence. Or were her racing thoughts just hysteria, and Ainslie's purpose whatever it was quite different? He might be in the prison for something unrelated to DoiL But she didn't believe it.

The witnesses had entered their glass-fronted booth, which faced the execution chamber, and a prison guard who was checking a list directed them to metal chairs. Cynthia and Patrick's seats were central in the front row. As everyone settled down, one seat was empty on Cynthia's right.

An additional shock: Just as activity in the execution chamber was beginning, the same guard brought Malcolm Ainslie to the seat beside her. As he looked sideways, she sensed he was inclined to speak, but she averted her gaze and continued looking forward. Patrick, though, glanced across at Ainslie and gave a small smile. Cynthia didn't think it was returned.

As the execution proceeded, only part of her mind was on it, the other part still dazed and racing with nervous thoughts. But as Doil's body convulsed while successive cycles of two thousand volts surged through him, she felt slightly sick. Patrick seemed fascinated by it all. Then, almost before she realized, everything was over. Doil's corpse was in a body bag, and all the witnesses were standing, prepared to leave. At that point Malcolm turned toward her and said quietly, "Commissioner, I feel I should tell you that shortly before his execution, I talked to Doil about your parents. He claimed "

The shock at having the news she had dreaded so suddenly confirmed was too much. Barely aware of her words, Cynthia shot back, "Please, there is nothing I want to hear." Then, remembering Doil was supposedly guilty of her parents' deaths, ''I came to watch him suffer. I hope he did."

"He did." Ainslie's voice was still quiet.

She groped for some authority. "Then I'm satisfied, Sergeant."

"I hear you, Commissioner." His tone was noncommittal.

They moved outside the witness enclosure, and it was then that Patrick made a clumsy effort to introduce himself, which Ainslie acknowledged coolly, clearly knowing who Patrick was and implying that he did not care to know him better.

The exchange ended when Ainslie's prison of ficer escort appeared and showed him out.

On the bus conveying the witnesses back to Starke, Cynthia sat beside Patrick but did not speak. She found herself wishing she had not interrupted when Malcolm began, I spoke to Doil about your parents. He claimed . . .

What was it Doil had claimed? Most probably his innocence. And if so, did Ainslie believe him? Would he probe still more?

A new and sudden thought occurred to her. When, long ago, she used her superior rank to abort Malcolm Ainslie's promotion to lieutenant, had she made the gravest error of her life? The irony was glaring: If she had not done so, Ainslie would probably not be a Homicide detective now.

The procedure following promotion from sergeant to lieutenant was automatic the person promoted was moved to some other department in the force. If it had occurred that way, Ainslie would have been busy elsewhere and not involved with the serial murders. Therefore others in Homicide lacking his specialized knowledge were unlikely to have perceived the link between the killings and the Book of Revelation, and thus so many other things would not have happened as they had. Even more specifically, Ainslie would not be prolonging the investigation of the Ernst murders as he might be doing now.

Involuntarily, Cynthia shuddered. Was it possible that Malcolm Ainslie who had remained in Homicide because of what now seemed her long-ago misjudgment would, at some unknown time ahead, become her nemesis?

Whether that was possible, or even likely, she wasn't sure. But because it just might happen, and for what he had done to her and hadn't . . . and for everything he was and represented . . . and for so much else logical or not she knew now that she hated, hated, hated him!