A Simple Act of Violence

by R.J. Ellory

  A face appeared on the screen.

  A moment’s hesitation, perhaps something close to disbelief, and then the plate slipped from Natasha’s fingers, and even as she stared at the face on the tube she was aware of the plate falling in slow motion toward the floor.

  Her daughter, a pretty nine-year-old named Chloe who was playing on one side of the room, turned around to see her mother standing in the doorway, her eyes wide, her mouth open.

  Everything went slow. Everything felt insubstantial. Everything that should have taken a second took a minute or more.

  The plate reached the ground. It too seemed to hesitate for a heartbeat, and then it exploded into twenty or thirty pieces. Natasha screamed in surprise, and because she screamed her daughter screamed, and for a moment Natasha was puzzled because she knew she’d dropped the plate, she knew it would reach the ground and break, but nevertheless the sound still came out of left field like something unexpected.

  ‘Mom?’ Chloe said, getting up from the rug, turning and walking toward her. ‘Mom . . . what happened?’

  Natasha Joyce stood motionless, surprise evident on her face, and it was all she could do to hold back her tears.

  THREE

  Ten minutes later Miller stood by the window in a third-floor office. Neutral-colored split-level paint job, beige topped by lighter beige. Beat-to-shit furniture. Radiators that groaned and creaked in some vague attempt to get warm, emitting a smell of rust and stagnant water. To Miller’s right and down through the window he could see the corner of New York and Fifth. Behind him on the desk was a copy of the Washington Post. From where he stood he could read the banner headline reflected in the glass. He felt cold and quiet inside.

  Fourth Victim of Suspected Serial Murderer

  There was a history behind such a statement. The French named it the monstre sacré: that thing we created that we wished we had not.

  Washington possessed its own variation. They named him the Ribbon Killer. His story preceded the death of Catherine Sheridan by eight months and three other killings. The ribbon he’d left behind had not been the same in these previous cases. The first was blue, the second pink, the third yellow. Pale baby blue, cotton candy pink, spring sunshine yellow. In each case a blank manila luggage tag, much the same as tags tied to the toes of corpses in the morgue, had been attached to those ribbons. Catherine Sheridan’s ribbon was white, she was the fourth victim, and Washington’s Second Precinct under Captain Frank Lassiter had taken the news of her killing like a head-shot. The ribbon and tag was a small fact, the signature perhaps, and had the Homicide detectives assigned to the first murder foreseen a series they would have withheld that detail. The first was a thirty-seven-year-old city librarian named Margaret Mosley, beaten and choked to death, her body discovered in her own apartment on Monday, March 6th. The second did not occur until Wednesday, July 19th. Her name was Ann Rayner, forty years old, a legal secretary with Youngman, Baxter and Harrison, once again found beaten and choked to death in the basement of her house. The third was Barbara Lee, a twenty-nine-year-old florist; pale birthmark beneath her left ear, hailed originally from Baltimore. Same MO. Found on Wednesday, August 2nd, in her house on Morgan and Jersey. And then there was Catherine Sheridan.

  The women were neither abducted nor tortured it seemed. There were no signs of sexual abuse or rape. Nothing appeared to have been taken from the properties, and thus robbery was also eliminated as a motive. From all indications, all four were home when the intruder entered the premises, perhaps held them at gunpoint, spoke to them, told them what he wanted . . . for there were no signs of a struggle, no broken furniture. Each of them was beaten, and the beating was swift, relentless, unabated. The beatings were confident, nothing restrained about them. And then, after the killer had strangled them, he tied a ribbon and a blank name tag around their necks - blue, pink, yellow - and now one in white. The police had let slip the detail; the media had run with the detail; the populace of Washington took the detail and made it their own. Ribbon Killer.

  Miller had read books, seen movies. It was simple in fiction. Four women were dead, and a man - a criminalist, perhaps a man with personal flaws and a difficult reputation - would look into the circumstances of these deaths and find the common connection. There would be something unique and special, and he would shine the light on this unique and special thing and say ‘See? Here we are. Here is the thing that will tell us who he is.’ And he would be right, and they would find the perpetrator, and the denouement would make it all as clear as daylight.

  Not so in life. With the initial case, that of Margaret Mosley in March of that year, Miller and Roth had walked the streets around Bates, around Patterson and Morgan and Jersey Avenue for little more than a day. They’d asked questions, waited for answers, listened carefully as those answers never came. Other detectives had then taken their place, and meetings were held to discuss the fact that they’d learned nothing of any great value. Then the case had been reassigned out of precinct, Miller had forgotten about it, had heard about the second killing several weeks after its occurrence. By that time he was already waist-deep in all that had happened, in the IAD investigation, the coroner’s inquiry, in the slow, painful death of a fourteen-month relationship with a girl named Marie McArthur, and thus - understandably - had given it no great deal of attention.

  Between the first killing in March, the second in July and the death of Barbara Lee in August, right through September and into the first week of November, Miller knew there was nothing of any significance that had shone a light on the truth. Had there been he would have heard from Roth or one of the other detectives. The Second Precinct was a close community; they lived out of one another’s pockets. The case was a nightmare, and though the newspapers turned to other stories, though the sports page and the mid-terms became once again the focus of attention for the vast majority of Washingtonians, the nightmare had evidently continued to walk and talk and breathe the same air as everyone else. Somebody had killed four women. He had killed them swiftly, violently, without clear reason or rationale, and the burden of investigation, identification, discovery and proof had now arrived with Robert Miller.

  Miller told Roth about the FBI when he arrived. Roth sneered sarcastically, but he did not challenge Lassiter’s authority.

  On loan to the Washington Police Department by the Behavioral Sciences Unit, FBI Headquarters, Quantico, Virginia, their visitor was in his mid-fifties, his manner perhaps that of a college professor. He wore a flannel jacket with cotton pants, the knees dusty and worn as if he spent much of his life kneeling awkwardly, peering into darkness, making cryptic notes. His name was James Killarney. He did not look like a married man. He did not look like someone’s father. He greeted each entrant with a half-smile, a nod; he knew his presence was somehow unwelcome - nothing personal, simply a matter of territorial and jurisdictional issues long-ingrained in the system. He seemed at ease, unhurried, as if such events were a matter of course.

  It was a little after nine in the morning as seven detectives took seats in that closed-door session on the second floor of Washington’s Second Precinct building. Amongst that group were people such as Chris Metz, Carl Oliver, Dan Riehl and Vince Feshbach - veterans of homicide, men that Miller would have considered more suited to heading up such a case. One for one they all carried the same look. I have seen everything. There is nothing the world can bring me that I cannot face. Soon, perhaps sooner than I think, I will have seen it all. Theirs was a look that Miller had hoped he would never assume, that it would be different for him, that he would never look that way. But he did. He knew that now. He believed he wore it better than all of them.

  The tension was evident in glances, shifting expressions, in the way each man present looked at the man beside him, the man adjacent, and back to Killarney at the front. This was Washington, such things could not be permitted to go on, but nevertheless the feeling of unexpressed resentment was tangible. Miller himself was caught between this and his curios
ity about what the visitor from Arlington could tell them about their case.

  Killarney smiled. He stood for a moment at the front of the room. And then he backed up and perched on the edge of the desk. Like the teacher, the college lecturer. All that seemed absent was a blackboard.

  ‘My name is James Killarney,’ he said. His voice was quiet, the voice of a patient and compassionate man. ‘I am here to talk with you about the situation, for I have some experience with such things, but before we begin I wanted to share with you some points of interest.’

  Killarney paused as if waiting for questions, and then he smiled again and continued talking.

  ‘At Berkeley they give seminars on criminal psychology. They deal with every variation of physical abuse from unprovoked and spontaneous attacks on women, through premeditated violence, all the way to kidnapping, torture, sexual abuse and rape and, finally, murder itself. They go into the whole maternal deprivation thing, you know?’ Killarney waved his right hand nonchalantly, tucked his left hand into the pocket of his pants. ‘How the superego is the part of a person’s personality that deals with moral and ethical issues, and if a person is deprived of maternal care at an early age then the superego will be underdeveloped.’ Another smile, the smile of a grandfather. ‘Basically, a stream of nonsense issuing from the mouths of people who have nothing better to do with their time than make up fairytales about how people think.’

  A consensus of murmurs, brief laughter.

  ‘There is one point however, and it has to do with the method and motivation of those who commit acts of violence and murder.’ He paused a moment, looked at his audience. ‘From observation, from experience, there appear to be two types of perpetrator. We call them marauders and commuters. Marauders are those who stay in one location, usually bringing a victim back to a single point to commit the crime. The commuters are the ones who travel out to different locations. The attacks are again divided four different ways. Power-reassurance, power-assertive, anger-retaliatory and anger-excitement. Each of them possess different motivations and therefore manifest themselves in different ways.’

  A shuffle of papers, homicide detectives reaching into jackets for pens.

  Killarney frowned. ‘What are you doing? Taking notes?’ He shook his head. ‘No need to take notes. I am here merely to orient you as to where you should go with your investigation, to keep track of your progress. These are simply categories, and should be viewed as such. The first we call power-reassurance. This is all about the need to reduce doubts about sexuality. A man who’s concerned he might have homosexual tendencies attacks women to prove to himself that he possesses a desire for women. He uses less force than other types of attackers. He plans carefully. He tends to attack in the same location and keep souvenirs.’ Killarney withdrew his hand from his pocket and folded his arms across his chest.

  ‘The power-assertive is what’s known as the “acquaintance-type”. These people come across as friendly and non-threatening. They become threatening later, usually when a sexual advance has been rejected. They become frightened. They feel invalidated, intimidated, weakened. Sexual tension becomes physical tension which swiftly becomes anger, rage, hatred. They switch to expressing their motive through violence. If they can’t have the victim, then no-one else can.’

  Killarney surveyed the faces before him, ensuring that he held their attention.

  ‘Third we have anger-retaliatory. Just as it sounds, this is all about anger and hostility toward women. The victim is symbolic. The anger-retaliatory will humiliate the victim in some way. Their attacks are often unplanned and violent. And the last one, anger-excitement, comes out of a sadistic need to terrify the victim, to cause as much suffering as possible. Attacks are like military operations. Locations, weapons, methods, all of these things are selected carefully and often rehearsed. They use extreme violence, sometimes torturing the victim, often killing them. The victim is ordinarily a stranger, and the perpetrator tends to keep records of the attacks.’

  ‘And how does this relate to the victims we have?’ Miller asked, something of a challenge in his tone. Though the FBI’s invasion of Washington PD territory was not Miller’s doing, he believed that a failure to act aggressively would be considered a failure to lead. He had been assigned the case, and from this moment forward he would have to demonstrate his willingness to take the first step.

  ‘We have a marauder,’ Killarney said. ‘But we have no clear indication of which of the four categories our friend falls into. Closest is anger-excitement, but there appears to be no sadism, no desire to terrify the victim. In this last case he even restrained himself, did not beat her face as he did the first three. But there are anomalies. He does not torture. There is no extreme violence.’

  ‘What about the beating?’ Miller asked.

  Killarney smiled knowingly, patiently. ‘The beating? The beating he gave them was just a beating. When I say extreme violence I mean extreme violence. The beating these women received was quite restrained in comparison to much of what I have seen.’

  Silence.

  ‘So?’ Miller prompted.

  Killarney looked around and then returned his attention to Miller.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Miller . . . Robert Miller.’

  Killarney nodded. ‘Miller,’ he said, as if to himself, and then he looked up, eyes wide. ‘I understand that you are now heading up this investigation.’

  ‘So I’ve just been informed,’ Miller said, and then realized the real source of his provocation. He had been cornered. He had been given something he did not wish to own. Killarney was perhaps there to help, nothing more nor less than that, but regardless he represented not only the removal of Miller’s power of choice, but also the implication that Miller - now given complete responsibility for the investigation - was not capable of handling it without assistance. Such was the nature of high-profile cases: the chief of police had to trust his captains, they in turn had to trust their deputies and lieutenants, but always the sense of uncertainty, the recognition that as the chain of command stretched further so the liabilities increased.

  ‘So tell us what you think, Miller . . . tell us what you think about the Ribbon Killer.’

  Miller was suddenly self-conscious. He felt Killarney was putting him on the spot because he’d interrupted him mid-flight, some desire to re-assert his control over the proceedings.

  ‘I was there at the first one,’ Miller said. ‘Margaret Mosley.’ He looked around the room. The other detectives were watching him. ‘I went in there and found her . . . didn’t find her, you know? I mean I was the first detective there. There were uniforms there when I arrived. Coroner was already on her way. I went in there . . . into her bedroom, saw the victim there on the bed.’ Miller looked down, shook his head slowly.

  ‘What was your first impression, Detective Miller?’ Killarney asked.

  Miller looked up. ‘First impression?’

  ‘The first thing you felt.’

  ‘First thing I felt was like someone had punched me in the chest.’ He raised his fist and thumped a point in the middle of his ribcage. ‘Like someone hit me with a baseball bat. That’s what I felt.’

  ‘And did you move through the scene, or did you survey the scene from a stationary point?’

  ‘Stationary . . . like we were taught. Always survey the scene from a stationary point . . . look for anomalies, things out of place. Look for the obvious before anything else.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The ribbon, of course.’

  Killarney nodded. ‘Yes . . . the ribbon, the tag. And then?’

  ‘The smell of lavender.’

  ‘No doubt?’

  ‘No, it was lavender . . . same as the other two.’

  ‘You were at the other two?’ Killarney asked.

  ‘No,’ Miller said. ‘I just happened to be on duty when the first one occurred. I wasn’t officially assigned to this case. I did see the preliminary file on the third however, and the
n last night, this most recent one . . .’

  ‘Who was present at the second?’ Killarney asked.

  ‘Second one came under the Fourth Precinct,’ Miller said. ‘None of us dealt with that one.’

  ‘And the third . . .’ Killarney glanced at the pages on the desk beside him. ‘Barbara Lee . . . any of you present at that one?’

  Carl Oliver, seated to Miller’s right, raised his hand. ‘Me and my partner, Chris Metz.’

  Metz also raised his hand to identify himself, and added, ‘That, officially, fell under the Sixth’s jurisdiction, but they didn’t have anyone free so we were called in.’

  ‘Which explains one of the primary reasons that this serial has continued unchecked for eight months,’ Killarney said, ‘and also explains why your chief of police has assigned it to one precinct, one lead detective . . . right, Mr Miller?’

  Miller nodded.

  Killarney turned back to Carl Oliver. ‘So tell us about the third one, Detective Oliver.’

  ‘Same,’ Oliver said. ‘Lavender.’

  ‘So we have our signature perhaps. The ribbon in the second case . . . Miss Ann Rayner, was—’

  ‘Pink,’ Al Roth interjected.

  ‘And then we have the blank name tag. A luggage tag? A John Doe tag? A lost property tag? This we don’t know, can only begin to guess at.’

  Killarney nodded slowly, unfolded his arms, put his hands in his pockets. ‘Margaret Mosley, Ann Rayner, Barbara Lee, Catherine Sheridan. Thirty-seven, forty, twenty-nine and forty-nine years of age respectively. Ribbons in blue, pink, yellow and white. The same perfume at each crime scene. Perhaps our friend doused the body, the bed and the curtains with lavender water in order to obscure the smell of decay. Possibly he believed he could delay discovery of the body.’ Killarney tilted his head to one side, sort of squinted at Miller, then looked at Roth. ‘Or perhaps not. Regardless, it did not work in this last instance because pizza had been ordered.’