Detective

"Yes." Obviously, Virgilio was using the fewest words possible. Jensen did the same.

"One week, maybe two. Okay?"

"Okay."

And that was the total exchange. After Jensen had described it, Cynthia asked, "You're sure your instinct's right? He understands what we want?"

"I'm sure. You don't arrange to meet his kind for lightweight jobs, and he knows it. So tell me about those other murders. The odd features isn't that what you called them?"

"Yes." A pause. "At Coconut Grove, four dead cats were left beside the victims."

"Four cats?" Jensen's voice was unbelieving.

"Don't ask me why because I don't know nor does anyone else. In Homicide they're still guessing."

"You said there was a similar case in Fort Lauderdale. What about that?"

"It's more complicated. The man's feet were burned, and no one knows why, except for a belief that both things were symbols in some killer's crazy mind."

"So what are you suggesting?"

"Copy the first one. Tell your man to take a dead animal and leave it."

"Not four cats, I hope."

Cynthia shook her head. "It should be the same but different, and one will do maybe a rabbit. It's just another symbol. Besides, there are other things."

"Such as?"

She described how, in both the Frost and Hennenfeld cases, the victims were found gagged and bound and facing each other. "And the murder weapon both times was a bowie knife. You know what that is?"

Jensen nodded. "I used it once in a story. Not hard to get. Next."

"Again at both murders a radio was playing loud. Hard rock."

"No sweat." Jensen was concentrating, memorizing; he would write none of this down, either now or later.

"Every bit of money that's there should be taken," Cynthia said. "My father always carries plenty and leaves it beside his bed. But my mother's jewelry must not be touched. That's how it was with those other scenes. Make that very clear."

"Shouldn't be difficult. Jewelry's identifiable and can be traced; I guess the other guy knew it, too."

"Now about the house," Cynthia said. "You may need this."

She passed a folded real-estate brochure across the table. It featured the Bay Point community, and as Jensen opened it, he saw a page displaying the layout of streets and lots. On one of them a house site was marked with an X.

"This is the . . . ?"

"Yes," Cynthia said, "and something else you should know is that there's a staff of three a butler and his wife, the Palacios; she also works and they both live in. A day maid comes in early and leaves at about four in the afternoon."

"So at night there are four people in the house?"

"Except on Thursdays. That's when the Palacios always go to West Palm Beach to visit Mrs. Palacio's sister. They leave by late afternoon and are never back before midnight, sometimes later."

Jensen's memory was loaded. "I might forget that. Let me get it right." He reached for the brochure and fumbled in his pocket for a pencil.

Cynthia clucked impatiently. "Give that to me." On the brochure she wrote:

D.maid  - in early, leaves 4p.

P's  - Thurs out late afternoon, back midnite

Pocketing the brochure, Jensen asked, "Anything else I should know about those other killings?"

"Yeah, they were messy." Cynthia grimaced as she described the knife slashes and body mutilations accompanying the Frost and Hennenfeld killings information she had obtained from Miami Homicide's files.

* * *

A few days earlier, during a weekday evening, Cynthia had walked from her own department to the Homicide offices. Senior of fleers from other departments often dropped into Homicide to chat and pick up stories about important cases; also, the coffee there was always good. Cynthia, as a former Homicide detective, frequently came and went, sometimes on Community Relations business.

She had chosen a time when the offices were quiet. Only two detectives were at their desks, along with Sergeant Pablo Greene, the senior officer present. After friendly greetings she told him, "I'd like to look at a file."

"Be my guest, Major." Greene waved airily to the file room. "You know where everything is, but call if you need help."

"I will," Cynthia said.

Alone inside the file room, she worked swiftly. Knowing where to look, she located the files for the Frost and Hennenfeld murders and took them to a table. The first file was large, but Cynthia quickly extracted two sets of notes, one by Bernard Quinn, who had been lead investigator, the other by Malcolm Ainslie as supervisor. Skimming both, she paused at usable information and transferred it to her own small notebook. Within minutes she closed the Frosts' file and opened the other. This was slim because it was not a Miami case, but had resulted from the visit of Sheriff-Detective Benito Montes of Fort Lauderdale. He had, however, supplied a copy of the original Offenseincident Report and supplementary notes that gave details.

After replacing both files, she returned to the main of lice and bid a friendly good night to Sergeant Greene and the other two detectives. Checking her watch, she saw she had been in Homicide barely twelve minutes, and no one knew which files she had reviewed.

Back in her own office, she studied and memorized the notes she had made, then tore out the notebook pages and flushed them down a toilet.

* * *

In the Homestead restaurant, while hearing of the brutality of the two double murders at Coconut Grove and Fort Lauderdale, Jensen decided that Virgilio would have no difficulty fulfilling that demand. The same applied to binding and gagging the victims and leaving them facing each other, which Cynthia specified as essential.

Weighing it all, Jensen mentally endorsed Cynthia's idea of imitating those two earlier crimes; in a perverted way, he thought, the concept was brilliant. Then he checked himself. In the way of life to which he had become committed, it was not perverted at all, but brilliant . . . period!

"You're doing a lot of thinking," Cynthia said from across the table.

He shook his head and lied. "Just memorizing all those ground rules."

"Add this to the list, then: no fingerprints."

"That won't be a problem." Jensen remembered Virgilio slipping on gloves before helping lift the wheelchair from the tradesman's van.

"There's one other thing," Cynthia said, "and this really is the last."

Jensen waited.

"Between the Coconut Grove murders and Fort Lauderdale's, there was a time gap of four months and twelve days; I worked it out."

"So?"

"Serial killers often strike pretty much at regular intervals, which means whoever did those two could pull off another, either during the last few days of September or the first week of October. I worked that out, too."

Jensen was puzzled. "How would that affect us?"

"We'll beat the bastard to it by setting our date in mid August. Then, if there's another of the same type of killing on one of those other dates, sure, there'll be an interval, but no one will think twice about it because the gaps won't seem a factor."

Cynthia stopped. "What's wrong? Why the long face?''

Jensen, who had looked increasingly doubtful, took a deep breath. "You want to know what I think?"

"I'm not sure I care, but go ahead if you want."

"Cyn, I think we're trying to be too clever."

"Which means?"

"The more we talk, the more I get the feeling that something can go wrong, terribly wrong.''

"So what are you suggesting?" Cynthia's tone was icy.

Jensen hesitated. Then, with conflicting emotions, knowing the significance of his own words, he answered, "That we quit, call the whole thing off. Here and now."

After a sip of a diet soda beside her, Cynthia asked softly, "Aren't you forgetting something?"

"I suppose you mean the money." Jensen passed his tongue across his lips as she nodded.

"I brought it with me to give to you." Cynthia touched the leather attache case on the seat beside her. "But never mind, I'll take it back." Picking up the case, she rose to leave, then paused, looking down at Jensen.

"I'll pay our bill on the way out. After all, you're going to need every last cent you have for a defense lawyer, and tomorrow I suggest you look for one. Or if you really can't afford it, you may have to take a public defender, though they're not very good, I'm afraid."

"Don't go!" He reached out to grasp her arm and said wearily, "Oh, for Christ's sake, sit down."

Cynthia returned to the bench but said nothing.

Jensen's voice was resigned. "Okay, if you want me to spell it out, I surrender . . . re-surrender. I know you hold all the aces, and I know you'd use them and never have a moment's regret. So let's go back to where we were."

Cynthia asked, "You're sure of that?"

He nodded submissively. "Sure."

"Then remember that the date for it all to happen must be as close as possible to mid-August." She was all business once more, as if the past few minutes had not occurred. "We won't meet again, not for a long time. You can phone me at the apartment, but keep it short and be careful what you say. And when you tell me the date, add five days to the real one and I'll subtract five. Is that clear?"

"It's clear."

"Now, is anything else on your mind?"

"One thing," Jensen answered. "All this conspiracy stuff has given me a raging hard-on. How about it?"

She smiled. "I can hardly wait. Let's get the hell out of here and find a motel."

As they left the restaurant together she said, "Oh, by the way, take good care of this." And passed him the leather case.

* * *

Despite Jensen's commitment to Cynthia and his acceptance of her money, doubts still plagued him. AIM the mention of seeking a lawyer kindled an idea.

Every Tuesday, Jensen played racquetball at Miami's Downtown Athletic Club along with another regular named Stephen Cruz. The two had met there and after many months shared an easy camaraderie on the court. Jensen had learned from other club members and media reports that Cruz was a successful criminal defense lawyer. One afternoon, while he and Cruz were showering after a tough, satisfying game, Jensen said on impulse, "Stephen, if a day ever came that I was in legal trouble and needed help, could I call on you?"

Cruz was startled. "Hey, I hope you haven't been doing anything . . ."

Jensen shook his head. "Nothing at all. It was only a passing thought."

"Well, of course, the answer's yes."

They left it there.

5

Two hundred thousand Dollars in cash exactly. Jensen had counted it in the bedroom of his apartment, not note by note, which would have taken too long, but by rifting through the various bundles and keeping a penciled tally as he progressed. The notes were all used, he was relieved to see, with denominations mixed. Hundred-Dollar bills were in the majority, and all were the new counterfeitproof hundreds introduced in 1996 another advantage, Jensen reasoned, aware that despite U.S. government propaganda claiming the old-type hundreds were mainly okay, many people and businesses declined to accept them since countless quantities worldwide were fake, and those who got stuck with them lost out.