Detective (5 page)

Ainslie hesitated. When he'd quit
the priesthood at thirty, after a
seminary education and a Ph.D.
degree, followed by five years as a
parish priest, he simply walked
away, abandoning religion entirely.
As to motives, apart from confiding
in a few close friends, he had
stayed mainly silent, having no wish
to influence others. As time passed,
though, he grew more willing to
answer questions.

"In some ways," he told Jorge,
"there's not a huge difference
between cops and priests. A priest
tries to help people, strives for
fairness and justice or so he
should. A Homicide cop wants to see
murderers caught and, if found
guilty, pay the penalty."

"Sometimes," Jorge said, "I wish I
could talk about stuff, saying it
perfectly, the way you do."

"You mean capital punishment?"

"Yeah, exactly. On the one hand I'm
a cop. How many cops in this country
are truly against capital
punishment? Two? Maybe three? But
then I'm also Catholic. And the
Church opposes capital punishment."

"Don't be so sure, Jorge.
Underneath, most religions are full
of hypocrisy because they accept
killing when it suits them. Oh, I
know the beautiful theory. I was
taught it. 'Life is a gift from God
and no human being has the right to
terminate life.' But that's only
when it's convenient."

"When isn't it convenient?"

"During wars, when men, not God,
take lives. And every country that
goes to war, from the Old Testament

36 Arthur Halley

Israelites through to modern
America they all assume God's on
their side."

Jorge laughed. "Well, I sure as
hell hope he's on my side."

"With some of your shenanigans,
there's not much chance of that."

"Me?" Jorge said. "You're the one
who turned in your dog collar. Can't
imagine you're on the Pope's top-ten
list."

Ainslie smiled. "Well, lately
there haven't been too many popes on
my list, either."

"How come?"

"Some of them have different rules
for themselves than they do for
others. Like Pope Pius XII you've
heard of him. He's the one who
ignored Hitler's slaughter of Jews,
making no protest when it could have
saved Jewish lives? That's how
religions condone murder without
actually taking a stand."

"My parents were ashamed when that
all came out," Jorge said. "Wasn't
there talk a while back about the
Church admitting guilt?"

"Yes, in 1994, and it lasted one
day. A draft of a Vatican document
surfaced in Israel; it described
Catholic 'shame and repentance' over
the Holocaust. But the next day the
Vatican said, 'No way, not us. Maybe
someday, not now.' They did a
Galileo."

"Give me that again."

"In 1633," Ainslie explained,
"Galileo was condemned for heresy
and held under house arrest for the
last eight years of his life all
because he showed that the earth
revolves around the sun. That, of
course, was contrary to Catholic
doctrine, which said that the earth
was the center of the universe and
didn't move. Only in 1992, after
what the Vatican called 'thirteen
years of study,' did Pope John

DETECTIVE 37

Paul II admit the Church was
wrong something science had
confirmed centuries before."

"The Church did nothing? Between
1633 and almost now?"

"Three and a half centuries. Rome
doesn't hurry its own confessions."

Jorge laughed. "But if I use a
condom on Friday, I'd better confess
on Saturday. Or else!"

Ainslie smiled. "I know; it's a
crazy world. Getting back to your
question I didn't like any kind of
killing when I was a priest, and
still don't. But I believe in the
law, so while capital punishment is
part of the law, I'll go along."

Even as he spoke, Ainslie was
reminded of the few dis-
sidents labeled by prosecutors as a
lunatic fringe who argued that Elroy
Doil, because of his adamant
denials, had not been proven guilty.
Ainslie disagreed. He was convinced
guilt had been proven, but wondered
again about Doil's proposed
confession.

"Will you stay to see Animal
executed?" Jorge asked.

"I hope not. We'll see what happens
when we get there."

Jorge was briefly silent, then he
said, ''Rumor around the station is
that you wrote a book, some
important religious thing. Sold
millions of copies, I'm told. Hope
you made millions, too."

Ainslie laughed. "You don't get
rich co-authoring a book about
comparative religions. I've no idea
how many copies were sold, though it
went into a lot of languages and you
can still pick it up in a library."

The dashboard clock read 2:15 A.M.
"Where are we?" Ainslie asked,
realizing he'd dozed off again.

38 Arthur Halley

"Just passed Orlando, Sergeant."

Ainslie nodded, remembering other,
more leisurely journeys along this
way. On either side of them, he
knew, was some of the more glorious
countryside in Florida. From Orlando
to Wildwood, fifty miles ahead, the
turnpike was officially a scenic
byway. Out there, hidden by
darkness, were rolling hills adorned
with wildflowers, stands of tall
pines, tranquil lakes and flowering
trees with multicolored blossoms,
cows grazing on vast fields of
farmland, orange groves, loaded with
fruit this time of year. . .

Florida, Ainslie reflected, had
become one of the chosen, coveted
places of the world. It seemed that
whatever was innovative,
sophisticated, artistic, and
exciting was to be found there,
especially in greater Miami a
sprawling, bubbling, international
cauldron of much that was best in
modern living. It was also, he was
somberly reminded, a hodgepodge of
the worst.

He had read once how the explorer
Ponce de Ledn had named Florida in
1513, invoking the Spanish phrase
pascua florida "season of flowers."
Still, that much was still as true
now as then in the aptly named
Sunshine State.

Ainslie asked, "Are you tired?
Would you like me to drive?"

"No, I'm fine."

They had been on the road slightly
more than three hours, Ainslie
calculated, and were better than
halfway. Allowing for inferior roads
after Interstate 75, which they
would shortly join, they could reach
Raiford at about

5:30 A.M.

With the execution set for 7:00
A.M., that left almost no time to
spare. Except for a last-minute
reprieve unlikely in Doil's
case there was no way a scheduled
execution would be postponed.

DETECTIVE 39

Ainslie leaned back in the car in an
effort to organize his thoughts. His
memories of Elroy Doil and all that
had occurred were like a file folder
of jumbled notes and pages.

He remembered having seen Doil's
name for the first time a year and a
half ago when it appeared on a
computergenerated list of potential
suspects. Then, later, when Doil
became a prime suspect, Homicide had
made extensive inquiries going all
the way back to Doil's early
childhood.

Elroy Doil was thirty-two when the
killings began. He had been born and
raised in Miami's "poor white"
neighborhood, known as Wynwood.
Though the name does not appear on
published maps, Wynwood comprises a
sixtyblock, half-square-mile area in
mid-Miami with a mainly
underprivileged white populace, plus
a grim record of high crime, riots,
looting, and police brutality.

Immediately southwest of Wynwood is
Overtown, also not named on maps,
with a mainly underprivileged black
occupancy, plus a similarly dreary
record of high crime, riots,
looting, and police brutality.

Elroy Doil's mother, Beulah, was a
prostitute, drug addict, and
alcoholic. She told friends that her
son's father "coulda been any one of
a hundred fuckers," though she later
advised Elroy that his most probable
father was serving a life term in
Florida's Belle Glade prison. Even
so, Elroy encountered a long
succession of other men who lived
with his mother for varying periods,
and remembered many of them from the
drunken beatings and sexual abuse he
received.

Why Beulah Doil had a child at all
was unclear, having had several
previous abortions. Her explanation:
she "just never got around to
getting rid of the kid."

Eventually Beulah, a shrewdly
practical person, in

40 Arthur Halley

structed her son in petty crime and
how to avoid "getting your ass
busted." Elroy learned fast. At ten
he was stealing food for himself and
Beulah, as well as filching anything
else in sight. He robbed other boys
at school. It helped that he was big
for his age, and a savage fighter.

Under Beulah's tutelage, Elroy
grew up learning to take advantage
of the lenient laws affecting
juvenile crime. Even though he was
apprehended several times for as-
saults, thefts, and petty larcenies,
he was always released back to his
mother's custody with a virtual slap
on the wrist.

At seventeen, as Malcolm Ainslie
learned long afterward, Elroy Doil
was first suspected of murder. He
was caught running from the area
where the crime had occurred, and
detained for questioning. Because of
his juvenile status, his mother was
brought to the police station where
he had been taken, and in her
presence, Doil was questioned by
detectives.

Had there been clear evidence
against him, Elroy would have been
charged with murder as an adult. As
it was, Beulah knew enough to refuse
to cooperate, and would not allow
voluntary fingerprinting of her son,
which might have linked him to a
knife found near the murder scene.
In the end, lacking sufficient
evidence to hold him, the police
released Doil and the crime remained
unsolved.

Years later, when he became a
suspect in a series of killings, his
juvenile record remained closed and
his fingerprints were not on file.

As it was, after Doil became an of
ficial adult at eighteen, he used
his street smarts acquired as a
juvenile to continue his criminal
ways. He was never caught, and thus
no adult criminal record existed.
Only much later, when the Police
Department delved into Doil's
background, was crucial information
produced that had been forgotten or
hidden.

DETECTIVE 41

Jorge's voice broke in abruptly: "We
need gas, Sergeant. Why don't we stop
at Wildwood, just ahead." It was al-
most 3:00 A.M.

"Okay, but get this car filled like
we're making a pit stop in a race.
I'll run in and get some coffee."

"And potato chips. NO, make it
cookies. We need cookies."

Ainslie peered over fondly and
realized why he sometimes looked upon
Jorge as a son.

As they took the exit ramp, both
men could see the beacons of several
gas stations. Wildwood was a tradi-
tional highway interchange in daytime
an untidy conglomeration of
junk-laden tourist stores, at night
a refueling stopover for
long-distance truckers.

Jorge chose the nearest gas
station, a Shell. Beyond it was an
all-night WaMe House with cars parked
nearby. A half-dozen shadowy figures
were huddled together around two of
the cars. As the blue-and-white drove
in, heads shot up and faces turned
toward the new approaching head-
lights.

Then, with incredible speed,
everything changed. The figures
separated, some thrust aside, others
running, the former close-knit scene
a sudden melee of gyrating legs and
arms. Doors of parked cars were flung
open, figures hurled themselves in,
and while doors were still closing
the cars started up and drove away.
Taking local roads, avoiding the main
highway, they were quickly out of
sight.

Jorge and Ainslie laughed.

"If we do nothing else tonight,"
Ainslie pronounced, "we just broke up
a drug deal."

Both knew that I-75 was a dangerous
route this late at

42 Arthur Halley

night. As well as drug traffickers,
there were thieves, prostitutes,
and muggers, all looking for
action.

But the sight of a police car had
preempted everything.

Ainslie gave Jorge money for the
gas, then, in the Waffle House,
bought coffee and cookies, saving
receipts for expense vouchers. As
well as expenses, both men would
receive overtime pay for this trip
tonight.

They sipped their coffee through
holes in the plastic tops of
cardboard cups as Jorge pulled back
onto I-75.

4

Ainslie and Jorge were 270 miles
north of Miami now, with about a
hundred miles to go. They were still
moving quickly amid mostly
commercial traffic. It was 3:30 A.M.

Jorge volunteered, "We'll make it,
Sergeant. No problem."

For the first time since leaving
Miami, Ainslie felt himself relax.
He stared through the windshield
into the darkness and muttered, "I
just want to hear him say it."

He was speaking of Doil, and in
some ways, he acknowledged, Karen
was right. His interest in Doil had
moved beyond the professional. After
observing the carnage left behind at
each murder scene, after hunting the
killer down for months, after
observing Doil's total lack of
remorse, Ainslie honestly felt that
the world needed to be rid of this
man. He wanted to hear Doil confess
to the murders, and then despite
what he had told Jorge earlier he
wanted to see him die. Now it looked
as if he would.

At that moment Jorge's voice broke
in. "Oh no! Looks like big trouble
up ahead."

The I-75 northbound traffic had
suddenly thickened and slowed. Ahead
of them, trucks were rolling to a
stop, as

44 Arthur Halley

were lines of cars between them.
Across the divider, on the
southbound lanes going the opposite
way, not a single vehicle was on the
road.