A Simple Act of Violence

by R.J. Ellory

  ‘Perhaps both the name tag and the lavender mean nothing at all,’ Miller suggested.

  ‘Indeed, Mr Miller. Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive, eh?’ Killarney smiled knowingly. ‘Personally I blame the television.’

  Miller frowned.

  ‘And the internet,’ Killarney added.

  ‘I don’t understand—’

  ‘You know how many tricks of the trade you can find on TV and the internet?’ Killarney asked.

  Miller opened his mouth to speak.

  ‘A rhetorical question, Mr Miller. Point I’m making is that pretty much anything you might want to know about what we’re looking for at a crime scene can be learnt on the internet. If you know what criminalistics and forensics are looking for you can hide it, or, indeed, you can give them something to find that means nothing at all.’

  ‘You think he’ll kill again?’ Miller asked.

  Killarney smiled. ‘Kill again? Our friend? Oh yes, Mr Miller . . . I can pretty much guarantee that.’

  Glances were exchanged between the detectives present - awkward, uncertain.

  ‘So now you want to know how you’re going to find this guy, right?’ Killarney asked. ‘You want to know what I know. You want to hear the magic words that will throw the light of truth and reason into this darkest of places, isn’t that so?’

  His audience waited, silent and expectant.

  ‘Well, there are no magic words, and there is no light of truth and reason,’ he said quietly. ‘You will find this man with persistence . . . nothing but unrelenting persistence. This is not luck. This is not guesswork.’ Killarney smiled. ‘I know I am telling you something you already know, but sometimes all of us need to be reminded about the simple truths of investigatory work. And if you want a reason, a rationale . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Well, I’ll tell you this, gentlemen, you cannot rationalize an irrationality. The only person who understands precisely why this Ribbon Killer does what he does is—’

  ‘The man himself,’ Miller finished for him.

  ‘Very good, Detective Miller. You win the Kewpie doll.’

  My name is John Robey, and I know everything you could ever wish to know about Catherine Sheridan.

  I know the street where she lives, the view from the back yard. I know what she likes to eat and where she buys her groceries. I know the perfume she wears, and which colors she feels will suit her. I know her age, her place of birth, the way she feels about many little things, and why . . .

  But I know other things as well. The important things. The things that frightened her. The things that caused her to wonder if she’d made the right decisions. What she believed would happen if she got those decisions wrong.

  I know the mundane, but also the complex, the simple as well as the elaborate.

  I know the shadows that follow as well as those that wait.

  And I have my own shadows, my own fears, my own small secrets.

  Such as my name, for my name wasn’t always John Robey . . .

  But such details do not matter now. Such details we will speak of when there is time.

  For these brief moments I shall remain John Robey, and I will tell you what I know.

  I know about love and disappointment, about heartbreak and disillusionment. I understand that time serves to dull the razor’s edge of loss until memories no longer cut so deep, they merely bruise with the repetition of trying to forget.

  I know about promises kept and promises broken.

  I know about Catherine Sheridan and Darryl King and Natasha Joyce. I know of Natasha’s daughter, Chloe.

  I know about Margaret Mosley; I know her apartment on Bates and First. I know the bay window with the sunny aspect that looks out towards Florida Avenue.

  I know Ann Rayner, the basement of her house off of Patterson Street NE.

  I know Barbara Lee, her corner house on Morgan and Jersey, no more than five blocks south east of where I now stand.

  I know that I am a tired man. Not because I have not slept. These days I sleep too much. No, it is not that kind of tired.

  I am exhausted from carrying these things.

  There is The Quiet Half. We all possess a Quiet Half. Here are our sins and transgressions, our crimes and iniquities, our lapses of reason and faith and honesty, our vices and misdeeds and every time we fell from grace . . .

  The Quiet Half haunts; it follows like those proverbial shadows, and then it waits with unsurpassed patience and fortitude. What do they say? Ultimately everyone dies from wrongdoings and shortness of breath.

  I carry enough for one man. Truth? I carry enough for three or five or seven.

  Caught up with me I suppose, and when I turn to look at my own Quiet Half I realize that there is only one way this thing can be exorcised.

  By telling the truth. By carrying the light of truth into the very darkest places, and not caring who or what is illuminated on the way.

  In that moment it will all come to an end.

  Only one thing I can do . . . between now and then I can carry the light. Expose the shadows. Show the world what’s there.

  They don’t want to see it - never have, never will.

  Too late. They’re going to see it anyway.

  FOUR

  Miller and Roth began work that afternoon, Miller already feeling a sense of urgency regarding what lay ahead. Killarney had finished his briefing, answered questions, and then Lassiter hammered them about results. Killarney would be tracking with them, he would not interfere, but he would be kept apprised of their progress.

  Miller’s initial thought - that he did not wish to become embroiled in some lengthy, high-profile murder case - had been replaced with a feeling that this was perhaps the best thing he could do. Already it had begun to pull his attention away from recent events.

  The words Killarney had uttered were still clear in Miller’s mind as he and Roth left the Second and made their way toward Columbia Street. Roth had with him the picture of Catherine Sheridan. The image, taken from her passport and digitally-enhanced to improve the contrast and color as Reid had suggested, had been reproduced in a postcard format. Miller had stared at the image, tried to see the woman. There was something about her features, something individual and striking, but he could not determine what it was. She looked as if she had lived with as much drama as had characterized the nature of her death.

  The previous day, Saturday the 11th, had been Veterans Day. Unusually chill, for sunshine varied little in Washington, and November temperatures rarely dropped below the high forties. A small thermometer on the veranda of the Sheridan house would have given the temperature as thirty-five Fahrenheit. Being Veterans Day, processions and remembrance marches would have been the focus of attention for the majority of Washingtonians; Arlington Cemetery, children dwarfed by the stainless steel statues representing America’s loss in Korea. A day of remembrance, of mourning, of the World War II Memorial inscription: ‘Today the guns are silent . . . The skies no longer rain death - the seas bear only commerce - men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world is quietly at peace.’ There would have been the sound of brass bands in the distance, Sousa marches challenging the hum and rumble of the city’s morning traffic. Respectful people, glancing back toward the sound as they remembered what Veterans Day meant to so many. A father lost, perhaps a son, a brother, a neighbor, a childhood sweetheart. People who stopped for a moment, closed their eyes, breathed deeply, nodded as if in prayer, and then moved along the sidewalk. Memories were left hanging in the crisp atmosphere, and as people passed by it was as if they could feel the sorrow, the nostalgia, the haunt of warmth as they walked right through them. For a single day Washington had become a city of memories, a city of forgetting.

  ‘Library after the house,’ Miller said as he and Roth pulled away from the sidewalk and drove toward Columbia. ‘That’s if the library is actually open today.’

  Roth didn’t reply, merely nodded.

  Greg Reid was i
n Catherine Sheridan’s kitchen when Roth and Miller arrived. He smiled, raised his hand in acknowledgement. In daylight he looked like William Hurt, his features receptive to life, to others, perhaps a man who gave more than he took. ‘So you’re on this job then?’ he asked.

  ‘We are,’ Miller said. ‘How’s it looking?’

  ‘I sent her away to the morgue,’ Reid said. ‘Did my preliminaries, took prints, pictures, all the usual. Have a few things for you.’ He nodded toward the kitchen table. ‘You’ve got the library card, right? There’s also some food from a deli in the kitchen, some bread, butter, stuff like that. It’s organic bread, you know? French. No preservatives. Date-stamped yesterday.’

  ‘Which deli?’ Roth asked.

  ‘Address is on the wrapper,’ Reid said.

  Miller took his notepad from his pocket. ‘Any messages on the answerphone?’

  Reid shook his head. ‘No answerphone.’

  ‘Computer?’

  Reid shook his head. ‘No desktop, no laptop that I could find.’ He smiled awkwardly.

  ‘What?’ Miller asked.

  ‘Never seen anything like this place,’ Reid said.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘This house.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’ Miller asked.

  ‘Take a look around. It’s very clean, almost too clean.’

  ‘Perp more than likely cleaned everything,’ Roth said. ‘They have this shit down cold now. God bless CSI, right?’

  Reid shook his head. ‘I don’t mean that kind of clean. I mean it’s like no-one really lived here. Like a hotel, you know? There’s none of the usual kind of mess you get with normal people. Washing basket in the bathroom is empty. There’s combs and cosmetics, toothpaste, all that kind of thing, but it seems like there’s too little of it.’

  ‘Did you cover any of the previous crime scenes?’ Miller asked.

  ‘I did the one in July over on Patterson.’

  ‘Ann Rayner,’ Roth said.

  ‘Same guy you figure?’ Miller asked.

  ‘Seems that way from all appearances.’ Reid paused for a moment. ‘Made a note for the coroner to check, but there may be something else . . . can’t be completely sure on basic examination.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘This one, Catherine Sheridan . . . she had someone with her yesterday.’

  ‘With her?’

  ‘Looks like she had sex with someone.’

  ‘You’re not certain?’

  ‘Certain as I can be from cursory examination. She had spermicidal lubricant in the vaginal area. Nonoxynol-9. Check with the coroner to be sure, she can do an internal.’

  ‘But no signs of rape?’

  Reid shook his head. ‘Nothing outward to suggest it, no.’

  ‘And time of death is confirmed?’ Roth asked.

  ‘Best we can place it, liver temp, temp of the environment, somewhere between four forty-five and six p.m. yesterday. Coroner can maybe give you something more accurate.’

  ‘Did you check last number redial?’ Roth asked.

  Reid shook his head. ‘Had my hands full with the lady herself, figured you could do that.’

  Roth walked through to the front of the house. He put on latex gloves, lifted the receiver and hit the redial button.

  Miller could hear him share a few words with whoever was on the other end of the line, and then he hung up and walked back through to the kitchen. ‘Pizza company,’ Roth said. ‘Have their name and address.’

  ‘Good enough,’ Miller said. ‘We’re gonna check the houses around here, the library, the deli, then the pizza place. How long before you’re done here?’

  Reid shrugged. ‘I haven’t done the upstairs fully yet. Did her body, packed it up for the coroner . . . have a whole floor to cover yet. Gonna be a while.’

  ‘We’ll come back later,’ Miller said.

  ‘Figure you could give me the rest of the day,’ Reid said. ‘I’m here on my own now.’

  Reid left them in the kitchen, headed back upstairs. Roth found the bag from the deli: French bread, a half pound of Normandy brie, a pat of unsalted butter, all untouched. The bread was dated the 11th, just as Reid had said. Baked fresh each day. No preservatives. Tomorrow this will be a baseball bat! the label read. Made Miller smile, Roth too, and then Miller remembered how Catherine Sheridan had been found, the way she’d been positioned, the color of her face, the rigored awkwardness of everything . . . Such a sight was sufficient to kill a smile. Kill it for several days.

  Roth made a note of the deli address, and together they left by the back kitchen door and crossed the lot to the sidewalk.

  Catherine Sheridan’s thoughts were something Miller could only guess at. For the time being he had to be content with little more than where she went that Saturday morning, perhaps a little of why. He and Roth walked up and down the street. They spoke with a handful of people who had not been home the night before. No-one else had anything to say. The house on the right of the Sheridan lot was now demonstrably empty. They had not been able to tell the night before, but Roth walked around the back, cupped his hands against the window and peered into the lower floor. Furniture shrouded in dust-sheets, rooms of stillness and silence. The left-side neighbor was still not home. Miller and Roth drove away from Columbia Street, headed toward the Carnegie Library.

  ‘We’re not usually open on a Sunday,’ the librarian told them. Her name was Julia Gibb, and she looked like a librarian; sounded like one too. She spoke in hushed tones. She peered at them over half-rimmed spectacles. ‘Today we’re open because of Veterans Day. Yesterday we were only open until noon, and today we’re open until noon again to make up for it.’

  There was a moment’s hesitation, and then she said, ‘It’s about Miss Sheridan, isn’t it?’ She reached beneath the counter and withdrew a copy of the Post. ‘I don’t know what to say. It’s a terrible, terrible thing . . .’

  Miller asked questions; Roth took notes. Julia Gibb did not know Catherine Sheridan, no more than any other customer. She’d noticed nothing out of the ordinary in her behavior, save the fact that she had returned books but withdrawn none.

  ‘I keep trying to remember if I said anything to her,’ Julia Gibb told them. ‘Yesterday? Yesterday I don’t think I said a word.’

  ‘Which books did she return?’ Miller asked.

  ‘I made a note of them,’ Julia Gibb said. ‘I know it’s nothing important, but seeing as how she was here yesterday I imagined that someone might want to know.’ She slid a piece of paper across the counter toward Miller. Roth picked it up, glanced over the titles - Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and East of Eden, Beast by Joyce Carol Oates, a couple of others he didn’t recognize.

  ‘And what time was it when she left?’

  ‘Quite early . . . perhaps a quarter of ten, something like that. I know we hadn’t been open long.’

  ‘Did you see her when she left again?’

  ‘Well, I was with another customer, and I heard the door close to. I looked up, didn’t see who it was, but could only assume it was Miss Sheridan because when the customer I was dealing with had gone I realized I was alone.’

  Miller nodded, looked at Roth. Roth shook his head; he had no more questions.

  ‘We’re done for now,’ Miller said. ‘Thank you for your help, Miss Gibb.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ she said. ‘Such a tragedy isn’t it? Such a terrible thing to happen to a woman like that.’

  ‘It is,’ Miller replied matter-of-factly, and then glanced once again at the slip of paper upon which she’d written the titles before tucking it safely into his overcoat pocket.

  As they drove away from the library Miller realized the effect such brief moments created. They served to remind him about people. Catherine Sheridan was a person - somewhere back of her death was a life. Just like Julia Gibb’s. Regular people watched as the lives of others exploded around them. Collisions of humanity. Moments of horror. No-one understood them, and often no-one cared to under
stand. Now, in his pocket, he had a list of the most recent books she’d read. Would her choices have been different had she known they would be the last things she would ever read, he wondered? A strange thought, but in light of what had happened one that further demonstrated the fragility and unpredictability of life.

  It was the same when they reached the delicatessen on the junction of L Street and Tenth. Owner’s name was Lewis Roarke, something Irish in his accent, in the dark rush of hair, the blue washed-out eyes. He didn’t remember Catherine Sheridan, even when Roth showed him the enhanced picture. Busy day. It was early. Folks coming in to buy polony, chorizo, milano salami, string bags of select cheeses for hampers, subs. Folks with kids, grandparents in tow. Food on the go. This kind of thing. No, he didn’t remember Catherine Sheridan, but then why should he have done? From her picture she seemed like a regular kind of lady. World was full of regular kinds of ladies. Nose piercing, streak of blue hair, something such as that, maybe then he would have remembered, but a regular lady? Smiled, shook his head, apologized despite having nothing to apologize for.

  Roarke took the card that Miller passed over the high glass counter, waited until Miller and Roth were across the street and then tossed it in the trash. Hadn’t remembered anything now, what’s to say he’d remember anything tomorrow, the next day? There were customers ahead of him. Yes, how can I help you?

  Miller and Roth sat in the car down the block from the deli.

  ‘So she goes to the library,’ Roth said. ‘She returns her books but withdraws none. She goes to the deli, presumably all of this on foot. She buys bread, butter, cheese, but then she doesn’t return to the house until about four-thirty.’

  ‘Because she went somewhere and had sex with someone,’ Miller said, matter-of-fact.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. You want to see the coroner or go to the pizza place?’

  ‘The pizza place,’ Miller said. ‘Want to speak to everyone she made contact with.’

  Roth started the engine.