Malcolm concluded, aware of bilingual Canada, with a robust "Salut!"
Amid appreciative murmurs, the toast was echoed. One of the guests said, "I'm a churchgoer, but I like that better than a lot of conventional graces that I've listened to."
The meal proceeded roast turkey as its centrepiece followed by more toasts and responses, including a simple but heartfelt "Thanks a lot!" from Jason.
* * *
The following morning Malcolm, Karen, and Jason walked together through the residential lakeside streets of Scarborough. From high bluffs they could see clearly across Lake Ontario, though neighboring New York State, some ninety miles away, was beyond their sight. It had snowed again during the night, and the trio threw snowballs at each other. After three tries, Jason finally found his target: Malcolm's head. "Wish we had snow in Miami!" he shouted happily.
He was a sturdy boy, square-shouldered, with long, well-shaped legs. His eyes were wide and brown and often looked serious and questioning, as if aware that there was much to discover, though the means of doing so was at times unclear. But now and then his face would light up with a radiant smile as if to remind the world that life was sunny after all.
Brushing the powdery snow from each other, they resumed walking. These moments were all too few, Malcolm realized, draping his arms around his wife and son.
After a while, as Jason skipped ahead, Karen said, "I guess this is as good a time as any to break some news. I'm pregnant."
Malcolm stopped, his eyes wide. "I thought. . ."
"So did I. It shows sometimes doctors can be wrong. I've had two examinations, the second yesterday; didn't want to tell you sooner and raise both our hopes. But, Malcolm, think about it we're going to have a baby!"
For the past four years they had wanted another child, but Karen's gynecologist had told her it was unlikely to happen. Karen went on, "I'd planned to tell you on the airplane coming here . . ."
Malcolm clapped a hand to his head. "Now I understand how you felt yesterday. Darling, I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I know you did the right thing. Anyway, here we are, and now we know. Are you happy?"
Instead of answering, Malcolm swept Karen into his arms and kissed her.
"Hey!" Jason said, and laughed. "Look out!" Then, as they turned, a snowball hit them, perfectly aimed.
* * *
"We gotta do this more often," Gary Moxie said early on the fourth day when the family rendezvous was breaking up with affectionate farewells. They had risen before dawn for a quick breakfast, then departed in several cars, all heading for the Toronto airport and early flights.
George Grundy drove Karen, Malcolm, and Jason. On the way, Jason chatted happily. He said, "Gramps, I'm sure glad we have the same birthday."
"Me too, son," the general told him. "I hope when I'm not around anymore, you'll celebrate for both of us. Think you can do that?"
"Oh yes."
"He'll do it," Karen said. "But you're talking a long way off, Dad. How about having next year's birthdays in Miami? We'll invite the family."
"A done deal!" Her father turned to Malcolm, who was seated behind. "If that's okay with you?"
Malcolm looked startled. "Sorry! What was that?"
Karen sighed. "Hello! Anyone home?"
George Grundy laughed. "Never mind. Used to be that way myself; I know the signs. Were you sorting out tomorrow's problems?"
"To tell the truth, I was," Malcolm acknowledged. He had been wondering: What was the best way to deal with the still unanswered questions arising from the final dialogue with Elroy Doil? And how quickly could it be done?
6
As it turned out, Malcolm Ainslie had no chance whatever to think about Doil during most of his first day back at work. Upon reaching his desk in Homicide, he found the entire surface covered with files and paper accumulated during the four days he was away.
The first priority was a pile of detectives' overtime slips. Ainslie pulled them toward him. At the next desk, Detective Jose Garcia greeted him with, ''Nice to have you back, Sergeant," then, seeing the overtime slips, "Glad to see you're getting to the important stuff first."
"I know how you guys operate," Ainslie said. "Always out to make an extra buck."
Garcia feigned outrage. "Hey, we got to make sure our kids get fed."
In truth, overtime pay was critical to detectives' livelihoods. Paradoxically, while a promotion to detective was coveted and went only to the best and brightest, on the Miami police force no extra pay accompanied the advancement.
Until 1978 Miami detectives received an extra hundred Dollars a month in recognition of their specialized duties, skills, and risks. But that year the Fraternal Order of Police union, in which detectives were an oft-ignored minority, needed a bargaining chip and gave away the bonus a sellout, as detectives saw it, making overtime earnings a necessity. Now, on average, a detective working a regular forty-hour week earned $880, from which taxes took a hefty bite. An additional twenty hours' overtime produced another $660. However, there was a price: any hours left for the detective's normal home life were virtually nil.
Every hour of overtime, though, was reported in detail, then certified by a sergeant in charge of a detective team a time-consuming chore that Ainslie impatiently completed.
After that came semiannual personnel evaluations one was now due for each detective on his team, handwritten for a secretary to type. Then still more paper a review of detectives' reports on investigations in progress, including new homicides all for memorizing, signature, and action where needed.
"Sometimes," Ainslie complained to Sergeant Pablo Greene, "I feel like a clerk in a Dickens novel."
Greene replied, "That's because we're all busting our butts for Scrooge."
Thus, it was not until late afternoon of his initial day back that Ainslie had time for the Doil matter. Carrying the tape recording, he headed for Newbold's office.
"What kept you?" Leo Newbold asked. "On second thought, don't tell me."
While Ainslie set up a tape recorder, Newbold told his secretary, "No calls unless it's urgent," and closed his office door. "I've been looking forward to hearing this."
Ainslie let the tape run from the beginning when he had switched. it on in the small, austere office near the execution chamber. There was a short silence, then the sound of a door opening as the young prison officer, Ham brick, returned with Elroy Doil, his head shaved, along with two prison guards, the grim procession trailed by the chaplain, Father Ray Uxbridge. Ainslie murmured an explanation of the sounds.
Newbold listened intently to the exchanges that followed: the chaplain's oleaginous voice . . . Doil's blurred tones addressing Ainslie, "Bless me, Father..." Uxbridge shouting, "Blasphemy!" . . . Doil shouting, "Get that asshole out. . ."
Newbold shook his head, his face incredulous. "I can't believe this."
"Wait, there's more."
The recording was quieter as Ainslie went through the charade of hearing Doil's "confession."
"I killed some people, Father". . .
"Who was the first?"
"Coupla Japs in Tampa"...
Newbold, his attention riveted, began making notes.
Soon, Doil's affirmation of his other killings...Esperanzas, Frosts, Larsens, Hennenfelds, Urbinas, Tempones . . .
"The numbers don't add up," Newbold said. "You told me so, though I was hoping . . ."
"That my math was wrong?" Ainslie smiled faintly, shaking his head.
Next came Doil's frantic plea concerning the Ernst murders: "Father, I swear. .. I didn't do it. . . ain't fuckin' true. . . don't wanna die bein' blamed for what I never done . . . "
The outpouring continued, then abruptly Newbold exclaimed, "Stop it!" Ainslie pressed the black PAUSE key. In the glass-paneled office there was silence.
''Jesus! It's so goddam real." Newbold rose from his chair, took an impulsive turn around the room, then asked,
"How far away was Doil from being dead when he said all this?"
"Ten minutes, maybe. Not much more."
"I don't know, I just don't know. I was sure I wouldn't believe him . . . But when death is that close . . ." The lieutenant faced Ainslie directly. "Do you believe what he said?"
Ainslie answered carefully. "I've always had doubts about that one, as you know, so. . ." He left the sentence incomplete.
Newbold finished it. "You find it easier to believe Doil."
Ainslie was silent. There seemed nothing more to say.
"Let's hear the rest of it," Newbold said.
Ainslie pressed PLAY.
He heard himself ask Doil, "About all those killings the fourteen you admit to. Are you sorry for those?"
"Fuck 'em all!. . . Just forgive me them others I never done. ''
"He's insane," Newbold said. "Or was."
"I thought so, too; still do. But the insane aren't lying every minute."
"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.