Detective (9 page)

In a way the hotel
matched its Coconut
Grove locale a
sometimes jarring
mix of past and
present. Within the
Grove, decrepit
frame houses nudged
once-exclusive,
stylish homes;
mom-and-pop trivia
shops stood
cheek-byjowl with
upscale galleries
and boutiques;
fast-food takeouts
abutted gourmet
restaurants;
everywhere, poverty
and wealth rubbed
shoulders. Florida's
oldest settlement a
historic village
established twenty
years before Miami
Coconut Grove seemed
to have not one
character but many,
all untidily
competing.

72 Arthur llailey

None of this troubled Cobo as he
left an elevator and walked along
the eighth-floor corridor. He was
neither a philosopher nor a Coconut
Grove resident, but drove to work
each day from North Miami. At the
moment nothing seemed amiss, and he
began to anticipate the relaxing
journey home.

Then, nearing a fire-exit stairway
at the corridor's end, he noticed
that the door of room 805 was
slightly ajar. From inside he could
hear the loud sound of a radio or
TV. He knocked, and when there was
no response, he inched open the
door. leaned inside, then gagged in
disgust at an overwhelming odor.
Holding a hand over his mouth, Cobo
moved forward into the room, and at
the sight of what faced him, his
legs weakened. Directly ahead, in a
pool of blood, were the bodies of a
man and a woman with dismembered
parts of their bodies around them.

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. "Se

DETECTIVE 73

cure 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?"

74 Arthur Halley

"Two bodies at the Royal Colonial
Hotel," Ceballos responded. "Room
805. Possible thirty-one." He swal-
lowed, 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, lis

DETECTIVE 75

teeing 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
with

76 Arthur Halley

out 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 detec-
tives 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.

DETECTIVE 77

Quinn turned to Ceballos. "That was
on when you came in?"

"Yes, and when the security guy got
here. Station sounds like HOT 105."

"Thanks." Quinn made a note. "My
son listens. I can't stand the
noise."

Ainslie was beginning a series of
calls on his, portable police phone.
Room 805's telephone would not be
used until after a fingerprint
check.

His first call was to summon a
Crime Scene ID detail
identification technicians who were
part of a civilian arm of the Miami
Police Department. The ID team would
photograph the crime scene and all
evidence, including minuscule items
that untrained eyes might miss. They
would seek fingerprints, preserve
blood samples, and do whatever else
the detectives needed. Meanwhile,
until the ID crew arrived, the crime
scene would remain "frozen in time"
exactly as when discovered.

One single blundering individual,
merely walking or touching, could
destroy a vital clue and make the
difference between a crime being
solved and a criminal going free.
Sometimes even senior police
officers, visiting a murder scene
out of curiosity, compromised
evidence; that was one reason why a
Homicide lead investigator had total
authority at any scene, no matter
what his or her rank.

More calls by Ainslie: a report to
Homicide's commander, Lieutenant
Newbold, already on his way; a re-
quest for attendance of a state
attorney; a plea to Police
Headquarters for an information
officer to handle the media people.

As soon as the ID team was finished
with the victims' bodies, Ainslie
would summon a medical examiner,
whose first inspection should take
place as soon as possible after
death. ME's were touchy, however,
about being called too

78 Arthur Dailey

soon and having to wait while the ID
people completed their work.

Later still, after the medical
inspection and the bodies' removal
to the Dade County morgue, an
autopsy would follow, which Bernard
Quinn would attend.

While Ainslie was telephoning,
Quinn used a rubber glove to unplug
the loud radio. Next he began a
detailed study of the victims'
bodies their wounds, remaining
clothing, articles nearby all the
while still making notes. He
observed several pieces of
expensive-looking jewelry on a
bedside table. Then, turning his
head, he exclaimed, "Hey, look at
this!"

Ainslie joined him. Incongruous
and bizarre laid out on the far side
of the dead persons, and initially
out of sight, were four dead cats.

The detectives studied the inert
creatures.

At length Ainslie said, "This is
meant to tell us something. Any
ideas?"

Quinn shook his head. "Not offhand.
I'll work on it."

In the weeks and months to come,
every brain in Homicide would
conjecture reasons for the dead
cats' presence. While numerous
exotic theories were advanced, in
the end it was conceded that none
made sense. Only much later would it
be realized that an important
matching clue was present at the
Frost came scene, within a few short
inches of the cats.

Now Quinn leaned down, viewing
more closely the crudely severed
body parts. After a moment he
gulped. Ainslie glanced across.
''You all right?''

Quinn managed to say, "Back in a
minute," and headed for the outer
door.

In the corridor outside, Cobo
pointed to an open doorway down the
hall. "In there, Chief!''

Seconds later, Quinn disgorged into
a toilet bowl the

DETECTIVE 79

breakfast he had eaten an hour
before. After rinsing his mouth,
hands, and face, he returned to the
murder scene. "Long time since I've
done that," he said ruefully.

Ainslie nodded. The experience was
one that Homicide officers shared
from time to time, and no one
criticized. What was unforgivable was
vomiting at a murder scene and
contaminating evidence.

Voices in the hall signaled the
arrival of an ID crew. A lead
technician, Julio Verona, stepped
inside, followed by an ID technician
grade one, Sylvia Walden. Verona,
short, stocky, and balding, stood
still, his piercing dark eyes moving
methodically over the scene
confronting him. Walden, younger,
blond, and leggy, whose specialty
was fingerprints, carried a black
box resembling a weekend suitcase.