A Simple Act of Violence

by R.J. Ellory

  ‘Significantly advanced?’ Roth interjected. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It’s difficult to say,’ Hemmings replied. ‘Cancer is a strange thing. The phenomenon of cells randomly reproducing themselves, rogue cells we call them, and when there’s enough of them going at it fast enough you have a tumor. The body’s equipped to fight some of them, and some tumors grow and they’re never anything but benign. With Catherine Sheridan it was malignant, very much so, and I don’t think she would have lived much longer.’

  ‘Was she taking any medication or undergoing any treatment? ’

  ‘There was no evidence of anything in her system. No painkillers, nothing. And like I said, I couldn’t find a record of her registration with anyone. There are some alternative clinics, quite a few of them in fact, but the legal ones still have to carry licenses, still have to record patients’ details and report who comes to them for treatment.’

  ‘But there are places where people can get medical care that don’t record patients’ details?’ Roth asked.

  ‘Sure there are,’ Hemmings replied. ‘Backstreet abortionists, veterinarians that do minor operations, illegal cosmetic surgeons—’

  ‘But people who treat cancer?’

  Hemmings shrugged. ‘Who the hell knows. I’ve heard about homeopaths using Vitamin K to treat cancer, but generally they fall foul of the FDA and run to Mexico.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why Mexico, or why do they get kicked in the head by the FDA?’

  ‘Why do they get kicked?’

  ‘Because Vitamin K is supposed to work a helluva lot better than most things . . . because it’s cheap, because you don’t really need any kind of extensive medical experience to administer it perhaps? I’m only guessing, but my experience with the FDA is that they get a real bug up their ass if someone is doing something that looks like it’s going to make people better.’

  Miller smiled wryly. Marilyn Hemmings carried too much cynicism for a woman of her age.

  ‘So is there any way of proving that the first three were killed by someone other than the one who killed Catherine Sheridan?’ Roth asked.

  ‘Anything I tell you could be argued in court,’ Hemmings said. ‘Way the D.A.’s office runs these days, you’ve got to pretty much bring the guy in with his signed confession and some video footage of him doing the thing before you even get a warrant to search his garbage.’

  ‘That’s a very wide streak of cynicism you have there,’ Miller said, once again surprised by Hemmings’ tone.

  ‘Cynical? Realistic more like. I see what these assholes do to people every single day, Detective. You do too, I’m sure, but I see it up close and personal. How many murders have you been present at this year?’

  ‘Hell, I don’t know . . . ten, twenty perhaps.’

  ‘You cover the zone of one precinct, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And there are other detectives who cover homicides?’

  ‘Yes, there’s anywhere between six and ten of us.’

  ‘Well, right now, with the coroner away, you’ve got me and Tom Alexander, a couple of others on a different shift. We cover eleven police precincts, fifteen if you count the overflow we share with Annapolis and Arlington. I have a facility that can cope with four hundred bodies at a time, and then a freezer that can take another one hundred and fifty if needs be. We cycle over six hundred a month, sixty-eight percent of those are murders, manslaughters, hit and runs, drownings and suicides. Of those a good two hundred and seventy-five are unlawful killings, and some of the things . . . well, hell, I don’t need to tell you what people are capable of doing to each other, do I, detective?’

  ‘I get your drift,’ Miller said. ‘You said there were three things . . . CSA at the scene said there was a possibility she had sex with someone on the day she died.’

  ‘That was the third thing, yes.’

  ‘Can you tell us anything about the person she had sex with?’ Miller asked.

  ‘I can’t tell you anything, except they had protected sex. He wore a condom. There’s a spermicidal agent called Nonoxynol-9, very common, you find it on dozens of brands. Can’t give you anything there.’

  ‘No other pubic hairs around the vagina?’

  ‘No, and nothing beneath her nails, and nothing in her hair, and nothing about the marks on her neck that help me tell you anything about him. Right-handed I think, that’s all I can get. Pressure marks on her left are a little deeper. Thumbs centered her neck. He knew exactly where to press, but that could have been good luck. He stood behind her, and then he came around and stood in front of her, and he was standing in front of her when she died. That’s as much as I can tell you.’

  ‘We’ll sort out this thing with the identification,’ Miller said, something in his tone that sounded like he was trying to reassure himself.

  ‘I’ll tell you something, Robert . . . there is something seriously awry when you cannot ID someone correctly on any system.’

  ‘Give me the name you got on her social security number,’ Roth said.

  Hemmings took a slip of paper from the desk and handed it over.

  ‘Isabella Cordillera,’ Roth said. ‘That’s all you got?’

  ‘That’s all there was. You track her number back and that’s the name the system gives you.’

  ‘There’s glitches,’ Miller said. ‘There’ll be an explanation. We’ll find out what happened on this, okay?’

  ‘And let me know, would you? I’m interested in this one.’

  ‘I’ll let you know what I can,’ Miller replied. ‘And I really appreciate your help.’

  Marilyn Hemmings shrugged her shoulders. ‘You asked for my opinion, that’s all. So there was a different sequence, or a different way he did the same things. Can I stand up in a court of law, put my hand on a Bible and swear that the guy who killed the first three was not the guy who killed Catherine Sheridan? No, I can’t. Can I answer your question about what my intuition tells me? Yes, I can do that, and my intuition tells me that it was someone else.’

  ‘And that someone else would have had to have access to the confidential case records in order to have made the killing and the positioning of the body that similar,’ Roth said.

  ‘Sure he would have. As far as I understand, the newspapers haven’t detailed the position in which they were found, and they haven’t said anything about the lavender,’ Hemmings replied.

  ‘They haven’t, no,’ Miller said.

  ‘Which means we are dealing with someone inside the police department, forensics perhaps, the medical crew that attended any of the crime scenes . . . or someone inside the county coroner’s office.’

  ‘Or someone,’ Roth added, ‘that has access to our systems.’

  There was silence for a moment as each of them absorbed the implications of what was said, and then Hemmings rose from her chair and extended her hand. Miller shook it, Roth too, and then she showed them down the corridor to the exit.

  As Miller reached the end of the walkway he glanced back, saw Marilyn Hemmings watching him through the porthole window in the door. Hemmings nodded once, smiled awkwardly, and then she disappeared.

  You wanna know about the real world?

  I’ll tell you about the real world.

  This is the world where I learned to hate like a professional.

  A world where I forgot how to talk to real people, and when I say real people I mean people like you - good people, kind people, people who had an interest in helping just because you were another human being. No better reason than that. You were just another fellow human being and that was good enough.

  A world where I forgot how to be kind and compassionate. Forgot how to make telephone calls. Forgot how to order food in a restaurant. Forgot how to say what I meant, to question what I believed in; forgot how to give my word, to keep my promises, and later forgot my own name. I ceased to be the child who went to school, who sat while his father explained woods and grains and densities, and the cycl
e of nature that made everything possible in an impossible kind of way. Forgot how to look at people and see anything other than what I was told to see.

  We talked about these things, Catherine and I. Everything we’d talked about before. And then we spoke about how she would die, and when, and what I would do afterwards, and I told her a story about my father, Big Joe the carpenter, and at the end of it she laughed, and she cried, and we held hands for a long time and said nothing much at all.

  It was not the first time we’d talked, but we believed it would be the last.

  ‘This is the real world, isn’t it, John?’ I remember her saying. And then she smiled. ‘You know something? Doesn’t take an awful long time to get to that other place, does it?’ She sighed, reached out and touched my hand. ‘But coming back? Hell,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know if I’ve got enough time for that journey.’

  NINE

  Washington - embroiled in the mid-terms that had raged for months. Vicious Republican advertising, slander and libel and worse. Democrats coming back with everything they possessed. Millions of dollars spent on ensuring Bush’s stranglehold on Congress was maintained. No-one wanted to read about serial killers and brutal murders. No-one wanted to take their eyes away from the battle that was occurring right there in their own arena. Miller and Roth were insignificant in the face of this, but for Miller there was nothing that compared to the sense of urgency he felt when confronted with the Sheridan autopsy report. It brought it all home with a crash.

  It was after four. Roth and Miller sat at adjacent desks in their office. As Miller finished reading each page of Catherine Sheridan’s autopsy report he passed it along. With each new detail he could see every aspect of the crime scene - the way she’d been positioned on the bed, the ribbon around her neck, the neat bow, the blank name tag, could smell the heady intoxication of lavender, beneath that the smell of something dead.

  Principally it was the same MO as the first three. The ribbon and the luggage tag were generic brands. Fingerprints and epithelials on neither. No hairs, no fibers. Confirmation that the victim had engaged in sexual intercourse at some point earlier on the Saturday. No signs of rape. No internal bruising or lesions. Presence of Nonoxynol-9 correspondent with use of a condom. No internal secretion to determine DNA of the sexual partner. Presence of soap residue in the pubis and between the victim’s toes suggested that she had showered or bathed post-coitus.

  ‘You okay?’ Roth asked.

  ‘I’m okay,’ Miller replied.

  ‘So she was going to die anyway, it seems.’

  ‘Everyone’s gonna die anyway,’ Miller said. ‘Doesn’t change the fact that someone killed her, and we have nothing new but the fact that she had sex with someone . . . and that she doesn’t really exist, of course.’

  Roth did not reply.

  ‘I need to see the house,’ Miller said. ‘I need to see it properly. Crime scene and forensics people look at the environment, they don’t look at the characters around it.’

  ‘You really think there’ll be something that could point us toward the guy?’

  ‘The one she had sex with, or the one that killed her?’

  ‘Either, both . . . could be the same person.’

  ‘I hope to God there’ll be something on the guy.’

  ‘And if there isn’t?’

  ‘Then we’re no further forward or back than where we are now. There’s nothing to lose.’

  Miller handed the autopsy report to Roth as he rose from the desk, almost as if the feel of the pages disturbed him.

  Greg Reid’s car was still parked outside the house. It was nearly six. The day had darkened already, the cold had settled in, and standing there on the driveway - the old neighbor’s house in view, the crime scene tape still adhered to the frame of Catherine Sheridan’s front door - Miller felt a sense of disquiet and unease. The lights and noise and confusion of Saturday night had gone, but the feeling was still the same.

  There is something else here, he thought. I have been here before. A place like this. A place where one thing appeared to be something else.

  Who was she with? Miller asked himself again. Between the library, the delicatessen and home, where was she before the old man looked up from the gameshow girls and saw her entering her house for the very last time?

  Where did you go, Catherine Sheridan . . . where in God’s name did you go?

  ‘Robert?’

  Miller started nervously.

  ‘You coming in?’ Roth asked. He was standing right by the front door, had peeled away the crime scene tape from one side of the jamb and was holding it up.

  ‘Sure,’ Miller said, and followed Roth inside.

  Natasha Joyce dialled the number she’d found and waited patiently. She was placed on hold, asked to select a department, and then she waited again.

  Finally she found someone who seemed interested enough to listen to her, and once she’d detailed her request he said, ‘And your relationship to the deceased, ma’am?’

  ‘Relationship? He was my fiancé.’

  ‘No legal relationship then,’ the man interjected matter-of-factly.

  ‘He was the father of my daughter. That counts for something, right?’

  Natasha could tell the man was trying to be sympathetic, trying to be understanding and compassionate to this poor black bitch on the phone. ‘The truth, ma’am? Not really, no. I know it seems unfair, but as far as accessing legal records is concerned, as far as actually getting the police or whoever to open a case file . . . I’m sorry, but it can’t be done.’

  ‘I just want to know where he was found. He was the father of my child, for God’s sake. He died somewhere and I don’t even know where he died . . .’

  ‘Give me his full name, ma’am.’

  ‘King . . . Darryl Eric King.’

  ‘Date of birth?’

  ‘June 14th, 1974.’

  ‘And the date of his death?’

  October 7th, 2001.’

  ‘Oh . . . 2001, did you say?’

  ‘Yes . . . October 7th, 2001.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, ma’am, then I really cannot help you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Public records database is archived after five years. Any information I might have here at the public records office was archived last month and then the systems were cleaned of that information completely.’

  Natasha Joyce was silent for a moment. ‘You can’t be serious,’ she said, her voice flat and monotone and disbelieving.

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry, ma’am, that is most definitely the case.’

  ‘So if I wanted to find out which police precinct dealt with it?’

  The man hesitated. ‘I don’t know, ma’am . . . seems like a needle in a haystack to me. You’d probably have to call every precinct house in the city . . . or maybe you could call the police department administration unit at the mayor’s office. They might be able to help you.’

  ‘Do you have the number?’

  ‘Sorry no, you’ll have to call Information for that.’

  ‘Okay . . . the police department administration unit.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re very welcome . . . you have a nice day now.’

  The line went dead.

  Natasha Joyce stood there for a moment, the receiver burring in her ear.

  ‘Mom?’

  She turned suddenly.

  Bleary-eyed and tousle-haired, Chloe stood in the hallway, her hand on the door handle, her head tilted to one side.

  ‘Mommy . . . I’m hungry.’

  Natasha smiled. ‘Okay, sweetie . . . I’m making dinner. Be ready soon, okay?’

  Chloe smiled. ‘Okay.’

  Natasha lowered the receiver into its cradle. She stood there for a moment with a cold sense of unease in the lower half of her gut.

  The same sense of unease that Robert Miller felt, standing in the kitchen of the Columbia Street house.

  Somewhe
re upstairs he could hear Al Roth talking to Greg Reid.

  Miller felt a strange sense of familiarity. Only once had he stood within these walls, and then for nothing more than an hour, but he felt as if the place had found its way inside him.

  He looked at Catherine Sheridan’s cupboards, her oven, the refrigerator. He took from his pocket a thin latex glove, slipped it over his right hand, and opened the door of the refrigerator. He found cold cuts, a bowl of chilli covered with Saran wrap, a plastic container of milk in the door compartment, its expiry date two days past. A half bottle of Chardonnay, the cork wedged firmly in the neck. All of it sufficient for one person.

  He turned around, tried to see everything and nothing, tried to identify anything at all that appeared out of place. He paused by the back door and looked out through the glass window into the narrow yard. He tried the handle but it had been locked.

  He remembered how she looked when he came over here. Catherine Sheridan was an attractive woman. From what he’d seen of her clothes she dressed well. Miller imagined her as self-confident and assured. And then someone did this thing to her - this violation, this sickening act of degradation - and left her for the world to see, there on the bed positioned on all fours, as if he’d wanted her to watch him as he walked away. And then there was the ribbon. A thin white ribbon tied neatly with a small bow at the nape of her neck. The name tag with no name. And the smell of lavender, overpowering and sickly-sweet.

  Miller tried to blanche his mind of the image. He believed he would recall it clearly for the rest of his life.

  He heard Roth and Reid making their way down the stairs, went out into the hall to meet them.

  ‘Mr Reid,’ Miller said.

  ‘Detective,’ Reid replied.

  ‘I hope that you’ve been home since we last saw you.’

  Reid smiled, said nothing.

  ‘You have anything for us?’

  Reid held out a plastic baggie, inside it a thin slip of newspaper. Miller took it, turned it toward the light.