It was that absence of fingerprints that left Homicide hamstrung in the final report in the file, where Doil was a strong suspect in the murders of Clarence and Florentina Esperanza. But without prints or other supporting evidence, no charge was laid.
The Homicide detectives’ frustration at that time was easy to envisage, Ainslie thought, as he closed the file and headed for a copy machine.
Using a phone at Metro-Dade headquarters, Ainslie called the number he had written down, and Father O’Brien answered personally. Yes, he told Ainslie, he remembered Elroy well, and would be willing to talk about him. In fact, if the sergeant wished to drive to Gesu Church now, the priest was in his office and available.
Father Kevin O’Brien, a bright-eyed Irishman, now middle-aged and balding, gestured to the wooden chair facing his desk.
Ainslie sat down, thanked the priest for seeing him, then briefly described his interest in Doil, adding, “I’m not here for evidence, Father. I simply wonder if you could tell me a bit about him.”
O’Brien nodded thoughtfully. “I remember Elroy as if I’d seen him yesterday. I think, initially, he enrolled in our program because he needed the meals, but after a few weeks he seemed to become mesmerized by the Bible—much more than any of the other kids.”
“Was he intelligent?”
“Extremely. But in his own way. And a voracious reader, which surprised me, given his marginal education. Now that I think about it, I remember he had a fascination with crime and violence—first in the newspapers, then later in the Bible.” O’Brien smiled. “It was the Old Testament that absorbed him, with all its ‘holy wars’ and God’s wrath, pursuit, revenge, and killing. Are you familiar with all that, Detective?”
Ainslie nodded. “Yes, I am.” In fact, from memory, he thought, he could have put together the kind of passages that would have attracted Doil.
“I saw great possibilities in young Doil,” O’Brien said, “and for a while I thought we had real communication, but in the end we didn’t. We talked about the Bible, but he twisted words, including mine, to mean whatever he wanted. He lusted to be an avenger for God, though redressing, I suspect, what he saw as life’s offenses against himself. I tried reasoning, pointing out God’s love and forgiveness. He didn’t listen; more and more he became incoherent. I wish I’d done better.”
“I think you did all you could, Father,” Ainslie said. “Do you think Doil has some mental disorder? Is insanity too strong a word?”
“Probably.” The priest considered. “We all have aberrations; they come in differing packages, and experts decide where aberrations end and madness begins. Thinking back, one thing I’m sure of is that Elroy was a pathological liar. He lied when he didn’t have to. He’d tell lies to me, for example, even when he knew I was aware of the truth. It’s as if he had an aversion to the truth about anything, no matter how benign.”
O’Brien concluded, “I’m not sure I can give you much more. He was simply a boy on the wrong track, and I gather, from the fact that you’re here, he hasn’t changed course.”
“I’m not sure,” Ainslie answered. “Father, I have one more question. Did you ever have reason to believe Doil carried a gun? Or any other weapon?”
“Yes,” O’Brien said at once. “I remember that very well. Most of the boys in my program talked constantly about guns, though I forbade them to bring any here. But Doil disdained guns and said so. I don’t know why, though I was told he did carry a knife—something big, I believe, which he boasted about to his friends.”
“Did you ever see the knife?”
“Of course not. I would have confiscated it if I had.”
Shaking hands with Father O’Brien as he left, Ainslie said, “Thank you for your help. Elroy Doil is an enigma, but you’ve helped put a few pieces in place.”
Ainslie returned to Homicide headquarters in the early afternoon, having driven some thirty miles to various ports of call in his quest for information. He immediately summoned a meeting of selected members of the special task force for 4:00 P.M. that day. The list, which he handed to a secretary, comprised Sergeants Pablo Greene and Hank Brewmaster, as well as Detectives Bernard Quinn, Ruby Bowe, Esteban Kralik, José Garcia, Dion Jacobo, Charlie Thurston, Seth Wightman, Gus Janek, and Luis Linares. Each of them had been involved in the surveillance duty.
Dan Zagaki, another Homicide detective who had been part of the surveillance, was not included on the list. When Zagaki showed up in Homicide during the afternoon, Ainslie took the young detective to an empty office for a private talk. Zagaki was clearly uneasy as he sat down.
A comparative newcomer, Zagaki had been promoted to detective and assigned to Homicide two months earlier, moving up from uniform patrol duty, where his two-year record since recruitment had been excellent. He was from a distinguished military family, his father a U.S. Army general, an older brother a Marine lieutenant colonel. Since his Homicide arrival, Zagaki had demonstrated eagerness and energy—perhaps too much of both, Ainslie reflected now.
“When we were doing our surveillance,” Ainslie said, “you reported to me that Elroy Doil was probably not our killer. You recommended we eliminate him as a suspect and discontinue surveillance. Is that correct?”
“Well, yes, Sergeant. But my partner, Luis Linares, felt the same way.”
“Not entirely. When I talked with Linares he said he agreed with you that Doil was an unlikely candidate, but he wasn’t in favor of ending his surveillance. His words were, ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’”
Zagaki looked crestfallen. “I was wrong, wasn’t I? I guess you’re about to tell me that.”
Ainslie’s voice sharpened. “Yes, very wrong—dangerously wrong, in fact. Recommendations by detectives are taken seriously here, though fortunately I didn’t act on yours. Now I want you to read these.” He handed Zagaki a sheaf of papers. They included the Form 301 from Sandra Sanchez, a report from the seventeen-year-old Homicide file on the Esperanza murders, with Doil named as the principal suspect, and three copied pages from Doil’s juvenile file.
At length Zagaki looked up, his expression anguished. “Oh boy, how wrong can you get! What will you do, Sergeant—have me thrown out of Homicide?”
Ainslie shook his head. “This is between us; it goes no further. But if you want to stay in Homicide, you’d better learn from what’s happened. You’ve got to take your time making these kind of judgments; you can’t come to conclusions solely on appearances. Be a skeptic—always. Remember that most of the time, everywhere in life, things are seldom the way they seem.”
“I sure will remember, Sergeant. And thanks for not taking this further.”
Ainslie nodded. “One other thing you should know: I’ve called a meeting this afternoon to revive the surveillance on Elroy Doil. You will probably hear about it, but I’ve taken you off the list.”
Zagaki looked pained. “Sergeant, I may be out of line, because I know I’m getting what I deserve. But is there any way I could persuade you to give me another chance? I won’t screw up this time, I promise.”
Ainslie hesitated. His judgment told him to stay with his decision. He still had doubts about Zagaki. Then Ainslie remembered his own early days in the force when he had made mistakes, and he supposed there was a forgiveness factor—a canon from his past that had never entirely left him.
“All right,” he conceded. “Be here at four o’clock.”
11
“I take it we all agree on our prime suspect,” Ainslie said.
There was a murmured chorus of assent from the twelve other members of the special task force crowded into Newbold’s office. The lieutenant stood against the back wall, having told Ainslie to take over his desk and chair.
The task force of three sergeants, including Ainslie, and ten detectives sat in chairs or perched on window ledges and tabletops, or simply leaned against the wall. As the meeting progressed, Ainslie sensed the team’s excitement, revived by the crucial information revealed through Sandra Sanchez and Elroy Doil�
�s now-exposed juvenile crime record.
On hearing of Doil’s criminal past, Sergeant Greene had exploded. “That goddam system! It’s insane, a public menace—”
Ainslie cut him off. “The lieutenant and I have been over that, Pablo. We agree with you; a lot of people do, and we hope to see some changes. But for the time being, we have to work with the system as it is. In any case, we have Doil’s record now.”
Greene, though still simmering, muttered, “Okay.”
“The first thing,” Ainslie informed the group, “is to resume the surveillance of Doil immediately. So I’d like you, Pablo, and Hank to make up a duty schedule. I suggest you work out the next forty-eight hours right here, so you can tell us before we leave. I’ll take my turn with the rest of you. Pair me with Zagaki.”
Brewmaster nodded. “Got it, Malcolm.”
“We need to remember two things about the surveillance,” Ainslie continued. “One is to be damn careful Doil doesn’t catch on to us. At the same time, we have to stay close enough that we don’t lose him. It’ll be a balancing act, but we all know what’s at stake here.
“Oh, one other thing,” Ainslie instructed the sergeants. “Don’t put Detective Bowe on the duty schedule. I have some other work for her.”
He turned to Ruby Bowe, who was standing near the door. “I want you to check on Elroy Doil’s employment record, Ruby. We know he’s a truck driver and works for different companies. We want to know which ones. Also, who was employing him, where was he, and what was he doing during the days of each serial killing? You’ll have to be low-key because we don’t want anyone telling him we’re asking questions.”
“It will help,” Ruby said, “if I can get all the information we have on Doil, including the surveillance reports so far.”
“I’ll have copies made for you right after this meeting.” Ainslie faced the others. “Is there any discussion? Any questions?”
When there was none, he pronounced, “Then let’s get on with it.”
The surveillance of Elroy Doil lasted three weeks and two days. Much of the continuous twenty-four-hour vigil by detectives was, as always, uneventful and often boring. At other times it was challenging, particularly when they were trying not to be spotted by the suspect. And throughout that time the weather proved the most miserable of the entire year. Shortly before the watch program began, a cold front moved eastward from Texas into southern Florida and sat in place for two straight weeks. It brought high winds and intermittent, drenching rain that made the task of following Doil, who drove trucks much of the time, unusually difficult. If the surveillance vehicle stayed too close for too long, Doil might notice it in his rearview mirror. On the other hand, in heavy rain with poor visibility, there was an equal danger of losing him if he got too far ahead.
In part the dilemma was solved by using two surveillance vehicles, and occasionally three, each communicating with the others by radio. After staying close to Doil for a while, one vehicle would drop back while another moved forward, taking its place. In police parlance, leapfrogging.
The three-vehicle mix, usually a commercial undercover unit and two innocuous-looking cars, was used for several out-of-town journeys Doil made for trucking companies that employed him as a temporary driver. On a journey to Orlando the six trailing detectives, two in each vehicle, all lost sight of him just after entering that city amid pounding rain. The three vehicles scoured downtown streets, cursing the poor visibility. Finally Detectives Charlie Thurston and Luis Linares, using an undercover Postal Service van, caught up with Doil. They spotted him through the window of a pizza bar, where he was eating alone, his massive shoulders hunched over a plate of food. The truck was parked nearby.
After Thurston had reported to the others by radio, Linares grumbled, “Hell! This caper ain’t getting us nowhere. Could go on for years.”
“Tell you what, Luis,” Thurston told him. “You walk over to old Doil and tell him that. Just say, ‘Hey, stupid, we’re tired of this shit. Stop fucking around and get on with the next killing.’”
“Funny, funny,” Linares said. “You should be on switched-off TV.”
Apart from the long journeys, most of the surveillance took place near Doil’s home, and that, too, presented problems.
When Elroy Doil’s mother, Beulah, was alive, the two of them had lived in a two-room wooden shack alongside the railroad tracks at 23 Northeast 35th Terrace, in the Wynwood area. Elroy still lived alone in the same dilapidated shack, and kept an ancient pickup truck for his own use in the front yard.
Because an unfamiliar vehicle might draw attention if parked for too long, surveillance trucks and cars were switched frequently, though less so after dark or during heavy weather. All the vehicles had tinted windows, so there was never a problem about the detectives being seen.
During some evenings the surveillance teams spent long hours outside Doil’s favorite local haunts. One was the Pussycat Theater, a bar and strip joint, another the Harlem Niteclub. Both were well known to police as hangouts for drug dealers and prostitutes.
“Christ!” Dion Jacobo complained after three successive rainy nights parked across the road from the Pussycat. “Couldn’t the bastard go to a movie just once? At least one of us could sit a coupla rows behind.” The detectives never followed Doil into bars or any other lighted place, aware that their faces might be known.
After nearly three weeks of round-the-clock surveillance, none of the detectives had spotted anything incriminating or even out of the ordinary. Ainslie, aware that most of his men were growing bored and frustrated with the assignment, tried to buoy their spirits with new information, most of which came from Detective Ruby Bowe.
Bowe had begun her research at the Social Security office in downtown Miami, where she received complete access to Elroy Doil’s work records. Concentrating on the preceding two years, she found that Doil had been employed by five Miami-area businesses: Overland Trucking, Prieto Fast Delivery, Superfine Transport, Porky’s Trucking, and Suarez Motors & Equipment. Most of the employment was for short periods. Doil appeared to move back and forth among employers. Bowe visited the companies one by one, her umbrella and raincoat barely protecting her from the continual downpours.
She found Mr. Alvin Travino, owner of Overland Trucking, especially helpful. He was a tiny, wizened man in his late sixties who apologized several times for “my poorly kept records,” when in fact they were impeccable. With no trouble at all he produced details of Elroy Doil’s assignments for the past two years, including logs with dates, times, mileages, and expenses, covering each trip. To save Ruby Bowe the trouble of taking notes, he called in a secretary to make copies.
Travino also talked about Elroy Doil. “From things I heard, I reckoned he’d been in trouble, but figured it was no business of mine unless he got up to some malarkey here, and he never has. Oh, there was an incident or two, but nothing much that affected his work. The main point is, he’s one helluva good driver. Can whip a tractor-trailer rig in and out of the tightest spots, never hesitating, and that ain’t easy—can’t do it half as well myself. He’s safe, too. Never had an accident, never brought back one of my rigs damaged.”
“Those ‘incidents’ you mentioned,” Bowe prompted. “What were they?”
Alvin Travino chuckled. “Weird stuff; almost sorry I mentioned ’em. Well, now and then we’d find a few things in the cab after he’d been driving—maybe six or seven dead birds, another time a coupla dogs, once a dead cat.”
Ruby’s eyes widened. “Wow, that is strange. What did you say to Doil?”
“Well …” The diminutive trucking boss hesitated. “We did have a real brawl one time.”
“Really? What happened?”
“At first I thought those dead creatures might have something to do with religion, the way Haitians are with goats. Then I decided, hey, I don’t want that crap in my cabs anyway, and I told Elroy.”
“And?”
Travino sighed. “Wish I didn’t have to tell you th
is, because I’m beginning to get an idea of what you’re after. Fact is, the son of a gun went into a rage. Got red in the face, then pulled out this huge knife and waved it around, cursing like hell at me. Don’t mind saying I was scared.”
“Do you remember what the knife looked like?” Ruby asked.
Travino nodded. “The darned thing was sharp and shiny, with a long curved blade.”
“Did he attack you?”
“No. Because I stood up to him, looked him straight in the eyes, and said loud and clear that he was through. Told him to get out and never come back. He put the knife away, and went.”
“But he did come back?”
“Yep. Phoned after a week or two, said he’d like to work a bit. I let him. Had no trouble after that. As I said, he’s a good driver.”
The secretary returned with a pile of copied trip logs. Travino glanced through the pages, then passed them to Detective Bowe.
“You’ve been very helpful,” she said. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell Doil I was here.”
A final chuckle. “Not a chance. If I did, he might pull out that knife again.”
At Superfine Transport, Ruby Bowe talked with the general manager and two employees who knew Elroy Doil. There, as with all the companies she visited, they answered questions readily, making it clear they wanted no problems with police.
A thoughtful, articulate black supervisor named Lloyd Swayze expressed what seemed to be a general view of Doil. “The guy’s a loner. Doesn’t want friends. But leave him alone, let him do a job—which he’s mostly good at—and everything’s okay. Has a savage temper, though; saw it explode once when another driver tried to kid him. Doil was ready to kill the guy, I swear.”
“Was there a fight?”
Detective Page 19