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Cobo hastily closed the door, composed himself with an effort, then reached for a phone clipped to his belt. He tapped out 911.

A woman's voice answered, "Nine-one-one emergency. Can I help you?" A beep indicated the call was being recorded.

* * *

At Miami Police Communication Center, a complaint clerk listened while Orlando Cobo reported an apparent double murder at the Royal Colonial Hotel.

"You say you're a security guard?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Where are you?"

"Right outside the room. It's 805.'' As the complaint clerk spoke, she was typing the information on a computer, to be read moments later by a dispatcher in another section.

"Stay there," the complaint clerk told the caller. "Secure the room. Let no one in until our officers arrive."

A mile and a half away, a young uniformed policeman, Tomas Ceballos, in patrol unit l 64, was cruising the South Dixie Highway when he received a dispatcher's urgent call. Immediately he swung his car hard right, tires screaming, and, with flashing lights and siren, headed for the Royal Colonial.

Minutes later, Officer Ceballos joined the security guard outside room 805.

"I just checked with reception," Cobo told him, consulting a note. "The room's registered to Mr. and Mrs. Homer Frost from Indiana; the lady's name is Blanche." He handed over the note and a room key-card.

Inserting the card, Ceballos cautiously entered 805. Instantly he recoiled, then forced himself to take in the scene, knowing he would need to describe it later.

What he saw were the bodies of an elderly man and woman, gagged and bound and seated facing each other, as if each had been witness to the other's death. The victims' faces had been beaten; the man's eyes and face were burned. Both bodies were a maze of knife cuts. In the background a radio was playing hard rock.

Tomas Ceballos had seen enough. Returning to the corridor, he used a portable radio to call Dispatch; his unit number would appear automatically on the dispatcher's screen. His voice wavered. "I need a Homicide unit on Tac One."

Tactical One was a radio channel reserved for Homicide use. Detective-Sergeant Malcolm Ainslie, unit number 1310, was on his way to work in an unmarked police car and had already checked in with Dispatch. Today Ainslie and his team were the on-duty hot unit.

The dispatcher alerted Ainslie, who switched to Tac One. "Thirteen-ten to one-sixty-four. QSK?"

"Two bodies at the Royal Colonial Hotel," Ceballos responded. "Room 805. Possible thirty-one." He swallowed, steadying his voice. "Make that a definite thirtyone. It's a bad one, real bad."

A 31 was a homicide, and Ainslie answered, "Okay, on my way. Secure the scene. Don't allow anyone in that room including yourself."

Ainslie spun his car around on a two-way street and pushed hard on the accelerator. At the same time he radioed Detective Bernard Quinn, a member of Ainslie's team, instructing Quinn to join him at the Royal Colonial.

His remaining detectives were handling other murders and for the time being unavailable. The past few months had been rife with homicides; investigations were piling up. Today. it seemed, the grim reaping was continuing.

Ainslie and Quinn arrived at the hotel within moments of each other, and together headed for a bank of elevators. Quinn, with graying hair and a seamed, weathered face, was impeccably dressed in a navy sports jacket, immaculate gray slacks, and a striped tie. A Britisher by birth and an American by adoption, he was a Homicide veteran, his retirement at age sixty not far away.

Quinn was respected and liked by colleagues, in part because he was never a threat to anyone's ambitions. After becoming a detective and doing his job well, he had not sought promotion. He simply did not want to be responsible for others, and had never taken the sergeant's exam, which he could have passed easily. But Quinn was a good man to have as lead investigator at any crime scene.

"This will be your case, Bernie," Ainslie said. "I'll stay to help, though. Get you started."

As they passed through the spacious, foliage-lined hotel lobby, Ainslie saw two women reporters near the registration desk. Media people sometimes cruised the streets, listening to police radio, and got to crime scenes early. One of the two, recognizing the detectives, hurried toward an elevator they had boarded, but the door slid closed before she reached it.

As the elevator rose, Quinn sighed. "There must be better ways to begin a day."

"You'll find out soon enough," Ainslie said. "Who knows? You might even miss this in retirement."

At the eighth floor, as they emerged, the security guard, Cobo, stepped forward. "Do you gentlemen have business " He stopped on seeing the Miami Police ID badges that Ainslie and Quinn had clipped to their jackets.

"Unfortunately," Quinn said, ''we do."

"Sorry, guys! Sure glad you're here. I've been stopping everyone who has no "

"Keep it up," Ainslie told him. "Stay on it. Lots of our people will be arriving, but don't let anyone by without identification. And we'll want this corridor kept clear."

"Yes, sir." With all the excitement, Cobo had no intention of going home.

From the doorway of room 805, Officer Ceballos approached, treating the Homicide detectives with respect. Like many young policemen, his ambition was to shed his uniform one day for a detective's plain clothes, and it did no harm to create a good impression. Ceballos handed over the security guard's note identifying 805's occupants, and reported that apart from the two brief inspections by Cobo and himself, the crime scene was undisturbed.

"Good." Ainslie acknowledged. "Remain on the scene and I'll get a two-man unit to assist you. The press is already in the hotel and pretty soon they'll be swarming. I don't want a single one on this floor, and don't give out any information; just say a PI officer will be here later. Meanwhile, no one else gets even close to room 805 without seeing me or Detective Quinn. You got all that?"

"Yes, Sergeant."

"Okay, let's see what we have."

As Ceballos opened the door of 805, Bernard Quinn wrinkled his nose in disgust. "And you think I'll miss this?"

Ainslie shook his head dismally. The odor of death was a sickening, rancid smell that permeated every homicide scene, especially where there were open wounds and seeping body fluids.

Both detectives recorded in notebooks their time of entry. They would continue making notes about every action taken until the case was closed. The process was burdensome, but necessary in case their memories were later challenged in court.

Initially they stood stock-still, surveying the awful scene before them twin pools of partially dried blood and the mutilated, already decomposing bodies. Homicide detectives learn early in their careers that once a human body has ceased to live, the process of decay is extraordinarily swift; when heartbeats stop and blood no longer flows, armies of microbes soon turn flesh and body liquids into rotting offal. Ainslie remembered a veteran medical examiner who was given to proclaiming, "Garbage! That's all a human corpse ever is, and once we've learned what we need to, the sooner we dispose of it the better. Burn cadavers! That's the best way. Then if somebody wants to spread the ashes over some lake, fine, no harm done. But cemeteries, coffins, they're all barbaric a waste of good land."

Apart from the bodies in 805, the room was in a state of wild disorder, with chairs turned over, bedding disarrayed, and the victims' clothes scattered around. The radio, on a windowsill, continued to play. Quinn turned to Ceballos. "That was on when you came in?"