A Simple Act of Violence

by R.J. Ellory

  ‘And your name?’

  ‘Robey. I am Professor John Robey.’

  ‘I wanted to ask you some questions, Professor Robey.’

  Robey smiled. ‘About what?’

  ‘About some people that you might know.’

  ‘I don’t know a great many people, detective. We academic types lead solitary lives, you know?’

  ‘I understand, sir, but I think that you might be able to help us nevertheless.’

  Robey was silent for a moment. He looked toward the door of the diner, through the window to the right, and then he turned back to Miller. ‘If you’re planning to delay me then the least you can do is send someone to the college. Tell them to go and see Alan Edgewood. He’s the dean. Explain that you have detained me and apologize for me, would you?’

  ‘I can do that,’ Miller said.

  ‘That would be appreciated.’

  ‘So will you sit with me for a moment?’ Miller indicated the window booth.

  Metz and Oliver were in a car against the opposite curb with a clear view of the window. In the facing building, third story, Miller had two SWAT officers. They were not on high alert, but they were there should Robey go postal or try to run.

  Robey carried his coffee to the booth and sat down. Miller sat facing him. Roth stayed on a barstool at the counter.

  ‘You look tired, Detective Miller.’

  ‘I have been busy looking for you,’ Miller said.

  ‘For me? Why on earth have you been looking for me?’

  Miller looked at Robey closely. He placed him in his mid-to-late forties, mid-brown hair greying at the temples, clean-shaven, rugged features. His eyes were an awkward color - neither grey nor green nor blue, but somewhere between all of them - and around them the map of crow’s-feet and fine lines that scored his face. His manner was that of a man arrived. There was no other way Miller could describe it. Unlike so many people - everything a stepping stone, a way-station en route to something better - Robey seemed settled. He wasn’t nervous, had not reacted in any untoward way to Miller’s approach, nor his request to answer some questions. His entire demeanor was that of someone who had expected such a meeting, had in fact been anticipating it.

  ‘We have been looking for you because of some photographs, ’ Miller said.

  ‘Photographs?’ Robey raised his cup and sipped his coffee. He glanced toward the car against the curb on the other side of the street, back towards Roth at the counter.

  ‘Your people?’ Robey asked.

  Miller nodded.

  ‘For me?’

  ‘We’re looking at something important, Professor Robey, and we’ve reached a point where we thought you might be able to help us.’

  ‘You mentioned photographs.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of whom?’ Miller replied. ‘Photographs of you and a woman named Catherine Sheridan.’

  ‘Catherine who? Sheraton?’

  ‘Sheridan, Catherine Sheridan.’

  Robey nodded understandingly. ‘I have lived a life, Detective Miller. I have traveled the world several times over. I have met hundreds, if not thousands of people, and I can’t say that I remember someone named Catherine Sheridan. It is not a name that immediately comes to mind.’

  ‘I thought you academic types led solitary lives.’

  Robey laughed but did not challenge Miller’s comment.

  Miller reached into his jacket pocket. He withdrew a copy of one of the pictures that had been found beneath Catherine Sheridan’s carpet and slid it across the table toward Robey. Robey took a pair of glasses from his jacket breast-pocket. He spent a moment cleaning them with a table napkin, and then he put them on, lifted the picture, and stared at it for some moments. He shook his head. He handed the picture back to Miller and removed his glasses.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know that I can help you with this, Detective Miller. I cannot recall this woman’s face and, as I said, the name means nothing to me.’

  ‘Despite the fact that you have been photographed with her?’

  Robey looked toward the car again, and then back at Miller. ‘I have been at Mount Vernon for a few years,’ he said. ‘Before that I travelled extensively, much of it work-related, other trips purely for pleasure. There is insufficient background in your photograph for me to determine where it might have been taken. Perhaps it was someone I met, perhaps the wife of some tourist who insisted he take my picture with her after I had taken their photograph for them. It could have been a lecture tour, a group of us at some university campus or something. Such things happen, you know? You collide with strangers, and for a moment there is something . . . like now perhaps.’ Robey gestured at the diner around them. ‘Someone would see us here, perhaps even take our picture, and we would appear to know one another. Why else would we be seated at the same table drinking coffee? We must be friends, perhaps work colleagues. But no, we are neither, and we do not know one another, and we have never met before, and the likelihood of us meeting again is slim at best. An apparency, Detective Miller. What one sees and what one assumes to be are very rarely the same thing.’

  Miller nodded slowly. ‘Have you ever heard of a woman named Natasha Joyce? She has a little girl named Chloe. She lives in the projects out between Landover Hills and Glenarden—’

  ‘Natasha, you say?’

  ‘Natasha Joyce, yes.’

  ‘Oh, sorry, I was thinking of someone else. A student I had some time ago. I think her name was Natasha, but I don’t think Joyce was her surname.’

  ‘You don’t know anyone named Natasha Joyce then?’

  ‘I don’t think I do, but then here I am in a photograph with someone I don’t even remember, so who knows eh? I wonder how many people we’ve met in our lives, and we hear their names, and as soon as we hear them we forget them. We forget their faces too, I’m sure. You must experience that in your line of work.’

  ‘I am fortunate in that I have an exceptionally good memory for names and faces.’

  ‘Yes, that is fortunate indeed, detective. Good that you’re in a line of work where such a faculty can be employed beneficially.’

  ‘Do you know someone named Darryl King?’

  Robey appeared thoughtful, turned his mouth down at the corners, and then - once again - slowly shook his head. ‘It doesn’t ring a bell.’ He smiled, sort of half-laughed. ‘I really am not being very helpful am I?’

  ‘The reason I ask, Professor Robey—’

  ‘Please, detective, my name is John . . . no-one but my students call me professor.’

  ‘Okay. So the reason I ask - John - is that Natasha Joyce confirmed that you had gone to see her boyfriend, this Darryl King, some years ago. Apparently you went to the projects with this Catherine Sheridan, and you were looking for Darryl King. You were unable to find him, and you spoke with this Natasha Joyce . . .’

  ‘Apparently is the operative word here, detective . . . I may have difficulty remembering some things, but this trip to the projects you talk about, going out there to find someone with this Sheridan woman . . . I really don’t know how I could have forgotten something like that. This woman, Catherine Sheridan, she can confirm that these visits took place?’

  Miller shook his head. ‘Unfortunately she is dead.’

  Robey raised an eyebrow. He seemed concerned, almost troubled. ‘I am sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘Well, perhaps this Natasha Joyce could—’

  ‘She is dead as well,’ Miller interjected.

  Robey frowned. ‘I don’t understand. You think there is some connection between me and two women I have never heard of who are both dead?’

  ‘Yes I do,’ Miller said. ‘You visit someone, they identify you by your photograph, and you deny it ever occurred.’

  ‘So how is it that you think I might help you?’ Robey asked. He glanced at his watch, and with that simple action Miller realized that he had no reason to delay the man, nothing whatsoever.

  ‘Where were
you during the late afternoon of Saturday, the 11th of November?’

  Robey paused for some time. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then he smiled. ‘Yes, of course. Saturday the 11th. I was at the Brentwood Park Ice Rink. Alternate Saturdays I go there and watch the training session.’

  ‘Training session?’

  ‘The ice rink is actually closed for the afternoon, at least between two and five. One of the U.S. Olympic team skaters trains down there. I go and watch her.’

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘Not personally, no. I have spoken to her on a couple of occasions, but I don’t know her as such.’

  ‘So if the ice rink is actually closed for the afternoon how are you allowed inside?’

  ‘I met her trainer a few years ago. He was a good man. He’s dead now, but his assistant has taken over and he knew that we were good friends. He lets me come in and watch the training session.’

  ‘And her name?’

  ‘Her name is Sarah Bishop.’

  ‘And her trainer?’

  ‘The dead one or the current one?’

  ‘The current trainer.’

  ‘His name is Amundsen, Per Amundsen.’

  ‘And they would be able to verify that you were in fact there on Saturday the 11th between two and five in the afternoon?’

  ‘Sure they would,’ Robey said. ‘Aside from them I am the only person there. I sit right at the back. I don’t interrupt them. I watch the training and then I go home.’

  ‘Okay, Professor. We will have to verify your alibi—’

  ‘Alibi?’ Surprise was evident in his voice. ‘You are considering that I need an alibi for something?’

  ‘Most definitely yes, I do,’ Miller replied. He was tired, on edge, and there was something about Robey’s nonchalance that grated on him. ‘I have two dead women, both of whom were connected to you—’

  ‘You say they were connected, but neither of these women can confirm this.’

  ‘Because they are dead, Professor Robey—’

  ‘John.’

  Miller hesitated. ‘Whatever,’ he said aggressively. ‘I have two dead women and a photograph of you with one of them, a statement from the second that you visited her.’

  Robey inhaled slowly, and then he leaned forward. ‘What you say is unsubstantiated, Detective Miller. This is the word of a dead woman who I do not know against mine, so, if there’s nothing else . . .’

  Miller felt his fists clenching involuntarily. ‘I need your address and phone number.’

  ‘There will be more questions?’

  ‘Most definitely. We have a number of incidents we are investigating, and I am sure there will be further questions.’

  Robey smiled. ‘You sound like a TV movie.’

  Miller laughed suddenly, almost surprising himself. The tension between them had been very real. In that moment it broke - unexpectedly, almost without effort. A simple comment from Robey, You sound like a TV movie, and Miller felt something give. It was almost a physiological reaction, the feeling that something wound tight inside him had been released. He looked at the man facing him, this Professor John Robey - a man he’d believed might give him something significant to work with, something that would help him unravel the madness that these killings had brought to bear upon the police department, upon the city itself, and Robey had given him nothing.

  ‘You imagined that I would be able to help you with whatever you are fighting, detective?’

  ‘I considered you might be able to tell us something about this woman, Catherine Sheridan.’

  ‘I know how it is. You get a squall, you think it’s going to be a storm - but it isn’t. I am sorry.’

  Miller didn’t reply.

  ‘These women were killed by someone?’ Robey asked.

  ‘I cannot discuss this with you. You have answered my questions. I appreciate that you have work matters to attend to.’

  Robey reached into his jacket. He took out his wallet and from it he produced a business card. On the back he wrote his home address and his cell phone number. He passed the card to Miller and stood up.

  ‘I would ask you not to leave the city, Professor Robey,’ Miller said.

  Robey smiled. ‘I have no intention of leaving the city, detective.’ He gathered up his overcoat, his briefcase, and without another word he left the diner. Miller watched as he set off in the direction of Mount Vernon College.

  Moments later Metz and Oliver joined Miller and Roth in the diner.

  ‘Professor John Robey,’ Miller said. ‘Lecturer at Mount Vernon College. Lives locally, up on New Jersey and Q Street. Doesn’t know Catherine Sheridan. Says he cannot remember having his photograph taken with her. Does lecture tours, visits university campuses, that sort of thing. Says that such a photograph could have been taken without him necessarily knowing everyone present. Says he’s never heard of Natasha Joyce or Darryl King. Ostensibly cooperative, but didn’t give me anything.’

  ‘And on Saturday when the Sheridan woman was murdered? ’ Roth asked.

  ‘Professor Robey was watching someone train at the Brentwood Park Ice Rink between two and five.’

  ‘How does he explain the fact that there were three pictures of him with her?’

  ‘I didn’t ask him that, I don’t want to show him everything we’ve got,’ Miller explained. ‘I need to check his alibi. If he was at the ice rink then we simply need to question him about the pictures. If he wasn’t there, or if his alibi cannot be corroborated, then we’ll have enough to get a warrant to search his house perhaps, see if there’s something that links him to Sheridan. Right now, the way this thing is going, I want to make sure that we keep as much as we can to ourselves. If he thinks we’ve got nothing more than one picture to connect him to Sheridan, then he won’t be so guarded.’

  ‘You think it was wise to let him walk?’ Oliver asked.

  ‘We have nothing to hold him for. We get one shot at this,’ Miller said. ‘We arrest him for what? There’s nothing here but three pictures. He says he doesn’t remember her. He says he doesn’t know Natasha Joyce or Darryl King. We need to get something on him, maybe catch him in a lie. Then we’re in a position to act.’

  ‘So we’re going to Brentwood Park,’ Roth said.

  Miller turned to Oliver. ‘You guys wait here for Riehl and Littman, then go back to the Second and get them to write up whatever they got from the dean at the college. Wait for me to call you on where we go next, okay?’

  Miller and Roth stayed in the window booth. Audrey reappeared, brought them coffee, asked Miller if everything was okay.

  ‘As can be,’ he said. ‘Thank you for your help. You did a very important thing.’

  Audrey hesitated for a moment. ‘Is he the guy? He seemed like he was waiting for someone, and I’m really worried . . .’

  ‘We’re gonna find out if he’s someone to be worried about long before he comes back, okay?’

  ‘You promise me that?’

  ‘I promise, yes. You go on like nothing happened. It’s gonna be fine.’

  ‘I’m trusting you people on this one. I helped you out, and I don’t want some crazy motherfucker figuring out that I set him up.’

  ‘Audrey. Seriously. It’s okay. Right now he’s just a lecturer at the college. He hasn’t done anything that we know of.’

  She laughed. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—’

  ‘It’s fine. It’s absolutely fine. We’re going to make sure whatever happens doesn’t come within five blocks of here, alright?’

  ‘Alright. Thank you.’ She smiled at Miller, at Roth, and then she went back behind the counter and started preparing for the lunch traffic.

  ‘So?’ Roth asked.

  ‘There’s something with this one,’ Miller said. ‘The complete lack of surprise. Like he knew this was coming and he was ready for it.’

  ‘Shit, Robert, that counts for nothing. Lassiter’s gonna tear his fucking hair out. I don’t think you should have let him go.’

&n
bsp; ‘What would you have me do? Arrest him? For what? What the hell has he done?’

  ‘You could have pressed him further about the pictures. It wasn’t just one picture, it was three. One picture yes, okay, fair enough . . . someone could have one picture taken of them with some stranger and not know it. But three?’

  ‘I know what I’m doing, Al. You have to trust me, I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘Would help if I knew what the hell you were doing, Robert. Lassiter comes to me and asks why we let the guy walk. Why did we let this character walk? What am I telling him?’

  ‘Tell him to speak to me.’

  Al Roth said nothing for a while. He drank his coffee. He seemed to be unwinding himself for a moment, calming himself down, trying to gather his thoughts together and come to terms with what had happened. ‘So what’s his name?’ he asked eventually.

  ‘Robey,’ Miller replied. ‘John Robey.’

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  Miller frowned, shook his head. ‘No, why?’

  ‘That’s the name of Cary Grant’s character in To Catch A Thief.’

  Miller took Robey’s business card from his pocket and handed it to Roth. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Professor John Robey, Mount Vernon College.’

  ‘Spelled different,’ Roth said. ‘The movie guy’s name is R-O-B-I-E, but nevertheless it’s—’

  Miller waved his hand aside nonchalantly ‘It’s nothing. It’s just the guy’s name.’

  ‘So we go check out his alibi, and then what?’

  ‘Depends on whether it checks out.’

  ‘And if it does?’

  ‘We jump off that bridge when we get there.’

  THIRTY-THREE

  It was close to noon by the time they tracked down Sarah Bishop. A health club on Penn Street no more than a quarter mile from the ice rink. Lassiter had called three times. Miller had spoken to him, each time the conversation brief and perfunctory. Lassiter wanted to know if they’d found the Bishop girl. He wanted to know the same things that Roth had predicted. Why had Miller not shown Robey the three pictures? Why had he let him go? He knew the answers already, but this did not preclude his frustration.

  Sarah Bishop was in the canteen at the health club. Dressed in a jogging suit, her hair tied back, Miller placed her somewhere around twenty-one or two. She was a pretty girl, dark-haired, almost Mediterranean; sort of girl who would skip the cheerleaders for the tennis team, take languages instead of social studies.