"Put it on that table," she told him.
Cynthia paused, calculating the risks she might be taking, weighing them against the leverage they would give her over Patrick. She saw her duty clearly, but she also saw him as a useful tool.
Making a decision, she went to her kitchenette and returned with several plastic bags and kitchen tongs. Without touching the gun, which would have Patrick's fingerprints on it, she placed it in a plastic bag and sealed it. Then she pointed to a T-shirt he was wearing. "Take that off; those sneakers, too." Both were bloodstained.
Again, using the tongs, she put the T-shirt and shoes in other bags. "Now give me your house keys and take off the rest of your clothes."
When Patrick hesitated, Cynthia snapped, "Do exactly what I say! Now, where was it that you killed them?"
"In the driveway of Naomi's house." He shook his head and sighed.
With her back to Patrick and blocking his view, Cynthia turned off the tape recorder. In any case, she realized, he was still too dazed to notice.
Patrick had now shed all his clothes and was naked. He stood nervously, his shoulders slouched, eyes to the floor. Again Cynthia went to the kitchenette, and brought back a large brown bag, into which she stuffed Patrick's remaining clothes.
"I'm going to your house," she said. "I'll dump these somewhere and bring you back fresh clothes. While I'm gone, take a very hot shower and scrub yourself use a nail brush all over, and especially your hand that held the gun. Where did you get the gun?"
"I bought it two months ago." He added gloomily, "My name's on record."
"If the gun isn't found and there's no other evidence, you're safe. So you lost it a week after you bought it. Remember that, and don't change that story."
"I won't," Patrick mumbled.
As Cynthia left, he was entering her bathroom.
* * *
On the way to Patrick's house, taking a roundabout route, Cynthia disposed of his clothes in separate garbage cans and a Dumpster. At the house, she quickly put together fresh clothes for him to wear.
At 5:30 A.M., Cynthia returned to her apartment and upon opening the door saw Patrick sitting on the couch, hunched over the glass coffee table with a rolled-up Doilar bill in his nose.
"How dare you do that here!" she screamed.
His head shot up, revealing four lines of cocaine on the tabletop, which he had not yet inhaled.
Patrick wiped his nose and sniffed. "Jesus, Cynthia, no big deal. I just thought it would help me through this."
"Flush it down the toilet and any more you have. Now!"
Patrick started to object, then headed for the bathroom, muttering, "It's not like I'm an addict."
Cynthia silently acknowledged that Patrick was not, in fact, an addict. Like others whom she knew, he used the drug intermittently. She herself never used drugs, or anything else that might diminish her control.
Patrick returned from the bathroom blustering about the two hundred bucks he had flushed away. Ignoring him, Cynthia began to label and describe the items she had placed in plastic bags, including the gun and bloodstained clothing, making sure that Patrick was watching. Afterward, she put everything in a cardboard carton, intending to add the tape recording later.
Patrick, pacing the room restlessly, asked, "Why are you doing all that?"
"Just to make everything tidy." Cynthia knew it was an unsatisfactory answer, but it didn't matter. Patrick was high now, hyper and inattentive. Dismissing the query, as she expected, he launched into a description of how he kept his writer's notes in a similarly organized way.
Later, after Cynthia had hidden the box of damning evidence, she would answer Patrick's question more precisely and in a way he would like less.
* * *
The following evening, alone, Cynthia played back the tape. The quality was good. She had brought home another recorder and an extra tape to accomplish the next step. First, on the original recorded tape where Patrick described the double killing, Cynthia performed what tape technicians with a sense of history termed a "NixonWoods-Watergate" erasing a previously recorded portion by running the tape and holding down the RECORD button with no microphone connected. Using a stopwatch and notes, she wiped out all traces of her own voice. Afterward, just as on President Nixon's crucial Watergate tape, there were long gaps, but no matter Patrick's performance was clear and damning, as he would realize when Cynthia played it back to him. Meanwhile she made an extra copy of the edited tape for that purpose, putting the original in the carton with the other evidence.
She sealed the carton carefully with blue plastic tape bearing her initials, then drove with it to her parents' Bay Point house. There Cynthia had a private room on the top floor, where she stayed occasionally and stored some personal effects. Unlocking the room, she placed the carton on a high shelf in a cupboard, out of sight behind other boxes. She planned to reopen the carton and remove the labels that bore her handwriting; also, while wearing gloves, she would replace the plastics bags, which had her fingerprints, with new ones that did not. Somehow, though, as time went by and other pressures mounted, it never happened.
From the beginning, Cynthia did not intend to have anyone view the carton's contents. She simply wanted Patrick to see her assemble and catalog the items, giving her a permanent hold over him. Then eventually, she supposed, she would put the evidence in a metal strongbox and throw it into the Atlantic Ocean, miles offshore.
* * *
Almost at once after the discovery of the bodies of Naomi Jensen and Kilburn Holmes, Patrick Jensen became Miami Homicide's prime suspect and was questioned intensively. To Cynthia's relief, there were no adequate grounds on which to arrest and charge him. It was true that Jensen had opportunity and no alibi. But, beyond that, there was a total lack of evidence. She had also cautioned Patrick to say as little as possible while being questioned, and not to volunteer anything. "Remember, you do not have to prove your innocence," she had emphasized. "It's the cops who must prove your guilt."
Two minor pieces of evidence were found by an ID crew at the murder scene, but neither was conclusive. A handkerchief found near the bodies matched others Jensen owned. But nothing on the handkerchief proved that it was his.
Similarly, a fragment of paper clutched in Kilburn Holmes's hand matched another fragment found in Jensen's garbage. Again, it proved nothing. The bullets in both bodies were identified as .38 caliber, and records showed that Jensen had bought a Smith & Wesson .38 two months before. But he claimed to have lost the gun a week after buying it, a search of his house did not reveal it, and, without the murder weapon, nothing could be done.
Cynthia was also glad that Ainslie's team was not involved with the case, which was handled by Sergeant Pablo Greene, with Detective Charlie Thurston as lead investigator. Since Cynthia was known to have socialized with Jensen, Thurston did ask her, almost diffidently, "Do you know anything at all about this guy that might help us?"
She had answered, pleasantly enough, "No, I don't."
"Do you believe Jensen would have been capable of killing those two?"
"I'm sorry to say this, Charlie," Cynthia replied. "But yes, I do."
Thurston nodded. "So do I."
And that had been the end of it. It clearly did not occur to Sergeant Greene, Detective Thurston, or anyone else in Homicide that Detective Cynthia Ernst, while having been acquainted in the past with someone who was now a murder suspect, could even remotely be involved.
The reason, of course, was that the face Cynthia presented to her colleagues, superiors, and most others she met was cooperative and friendly. Only criminals with whom she dealt saw her cold and ruthless side.