"He was a pathological liar," Newbold reminded them both.
They stopped, listening again as Ainslie told Doil, ". . . a priest could not give you absolution, and I'm not a priest. "
Then Lieutenant Hambrick, confronting Ainslie: "You know enough. . . Do something!''
Newbold's eyes were on Ainslie during Foucauld's Prayer of Abandonment, which Ainslie intoned and Doil repeated. The lieutenant passed a hand across his face, seemingly moved, then said softly, "You're a good man, Malcolm."
Ainslie switched off the recorder and rewound the tape. Back at his desk, Newbold sat silently, clearly weighing what he had believed against what he had just heard. After a while he said, "You were in charge of the task force, Malcolm, so to that extent it's still your case. What do you suggest?"
"We check everything Doil claimed the money clip, a robbery, the Ikeis, the knife he talked about, and a grave. I'll give it to Ruby Bower she's good at that kind of thing. At the end we'll know how much Doil was Iying, or if he was Iying at all."
"And if, just for once," Newbold queried, "Doil wasn't Iying?"
"There isn't any choice. We take a fresh look at the Ernsts."
Newbold looked glum. Few things in police work equaled the frustration of reopening a closed murder case that everyone believed was solved, especially one so public and celebrated.
"Do it," Newbold said finally. "Get Ruby started. We have to know."
7
"Check out those things in whatever order you want, Detective," Ainslie told Ruby Bowel "But at some point you'll have to go to Tampa."
It was shortly after 7:00 A.M. the morning following Ainslie's session with Lieutenant Newbold, and they were in the Homicide offices, Bowe in a chair alongside Ainslie's desk. The previous evening he had given her a tape deck and a headset, telling her to take both home and listen to the State Prison recording. When he first saw her this morning she had shaken her head in dismay. "That was heavy shit. I didn't sleep much afterward. But I felt it. Closed my eyes and I was there."
"So you heard the things Doil said, the stuff we need to check?"
"I wrote them down." Bowe handed Ainslie a notepad, which he glanced at. Typically, she had listed every point requiring follow-up.
"It's all yours," he told her finally. "I know you'll get it right."
Ruby Bowe left, and Ainslie returned to the accumulated paper that confronted him though unaware he would have only a few fleeting minutes in which to work on it.. . .
* * *
The 911 call came through to the Miami Police Communication Center at 7:32 A.M.
A complaint clerk responded. "Nine-one-one Emergency, may I help you?" Simultaneously the caller's phone number and a name, T. DAVANAL, appeared on an ID box above the clerk's computer.
A woman's breathless voice: "Send the police to 2801 Brickell Avenue, just east of Viscaya. My husband has been shot."
As the caller spoke, the complaint clerk typed the information, then pressed a computer "F" function key, sending the data to a woman dispatcher in another section of the spacious room.
The dispatcher reacted promptly, knowing that the address given was in Zone 74. Her own computer already displayed a list of patrol cars available, with their numbers and locales. Making a selection, she called by radio, "Oneseven-four."
When Unit 174 responded, the dispatcher sent a loud "beep,'' prefacing an urgent message. Then by voice, "Take a three-thirty at 2801 Brickell Avenue, east of Viscaya." The "three" was for "emergency with lights and siren," the "thirty" notified a reported firearm discharge.
"QSL. I am at Alice Wainwright Park, close by."
While the dispatcher was speaking, she signaled Harry Clemente, the Communications sergeant in charge of dispatch and radio traffic, who left his central desk and joined her. She pointed to the address on her screen. "That's familiar. Is it who I think it is?"
Clemente leaned forward, then said, "If you mean the Davanals, you're goddam right!"
"It's a three-thirty."
"Holy shit!" The sergeant read the other information. "They got trouble. Thanks, I'll stay close."
The original complaints clerk was still speaking with the 911 caller. "A police unit is on the way to you. Please let me verify your last name. Is the spelling D-a-v-a-n-a-l?"
Impatiently: "Yes, yes. It's my father's name. Mine is Maddox-Davanal.''
The clerk was tempted to ask, Are you the famous Davanal family? Instead she requested, "Ma'am, please stay on the phone until the police unit arrives."
"I can't. I have other things to do." A click as the caller's phone connection ended.
At 7:39 A.M. the dispatcher received a radio call from Unit 174. "We have a shooting here. Request a Homicide unit to Tac One."
"QRX" shorthand for "stand by."
Malcolm Ainslie was at his desk in Homicide, with his portable radio switched on, when he heard Unit 174's message. Still sorting papers, he motioned to Jorge. ''You take it."
"Okay, Sarge." Reaching for his own radio, Rodriguez told the dispatcher, "Thirteen-eleven going to Tac One for Unit one-seven-four." Then, selecting the Tac One channel exclusive to Homicide: "One-seven-four, this is thirteen-eleven. QSK?"
"Thirteen-eleven, we have a DOA at 2801 Brickell Avenue. A possible thirty-one."
On hearing the address, followed by 31 for "homicide," Ainslie looked up sharply. Abandoning files and papers, he pushed his chair back from the desk and stood. He nodded to Jorge, who transmitted, "One-seven-four, we're en route to you. Secure the scene. Call for more help if needed." Pocketing the radio, he asked, "Is that the home of that rich family?"
"Damn right. The Davanals. I know the address; everyone does." In Miami there was no escaping the family name and its fame. Davanal's department stores were a huge Florida-wide chain. There was also a Davanal-owned TV station which Felicia Maddox-Davanal managed personally. But more than that, the family originally mid-European but American-Floridian since World War I was prestigious and powerful, both politically and financially. The Davanals were constantly in the news, sometimes referred to as "Miami's royalty." A less kindly commentator once added, "And they behave that way."
A telephone rang. Rodriguez answered, then passed the phone to Ainslie. "It's Sergeant Clemente in Communications."
"We're on to it, Harry," Ainslie said. "The uniforms called. We're leaving now."
"The DOA is Byron Maddox-Davanal, the son-in-law. His wife made the nine-one-one. You know about the name?"
"Remind me."
"He was plain Maddox when he married Felicia. Family insisted on his name change. Couldn't bear the thought of the Davanal name someday disappearing."
"Thanks. Every bit of info helps."
As he replaced the phone, Ainslie told Rodriguez, "A lot of power people will be watching this one, Jorge, so we can't screw up a thing. You go ahead, get a car and wait downstairs. I'll tell the lieutenant."
Newbold, who had just arrived in his office, looked up as Ainslie strode in. "What's up?"
"A possible thirty-one on Byron Maddox-Davanal at the family home. I'm just leaving."
Newbold looked startled. "Jesus! Isn't he the one who married Felicia?"
"He is. Or was."
"And she's old man Davanal's granddaughter, right?"
"You got it. She made the nine-one-one. Thought you'd want to know." As Ainslie left hurriedly, the lieutenant reached for his phone.
* * *
"It looks like some feudal castle," Jorge observed as they approached the imposing Davanal residence in an unmarked car.
The turreted, multi-roofed house and its grounds sprawled over three and a half acres. Surrounded by a high, fortress-like wall of quarried stone with buttressed corners, the entire place had a medieval flavor. "I wonder why they didn't include a moat and drawbridge," Ainslie said.