A Simple Act of Violence (38 page)

News came like a bullet. The sound of the phone woke Miller abruptly. Slurred when he said his own name, and then he heard Roth’s voice, and Roth said something that he didn’t understand. Miller - still fully dressed - sat up, took a deep breath, tried to focus on something on the other side of the room.

‘What?’ Miller asked. ‘What did you say?’

‘Got an ID,’ Roth said. ‘A very certain, very real ID. Someone has given our boy a name.’

‘You what?’

‘We’re trying to get some details right now,’ Roth said. ‘Metz called me. I’m at the precinct. Lassiter’s on his way. Get over here for God’s sake.’

‘Time is it?’

‘Quarter after eight.’

‘On the way,’ Miller said, and before the last word had left his lips the line had disconnected. He tried to get up. Blood rushed to his head. He took a few deep breaths, felt light-headed, tried to get up again and spent a few moments steadying himself before he moved. Felt like a hangover. Maybe not. So long since he’d had a hangover he couldn’t recall how one felt. Felt like he did at his mom’s funeral. Everything vague, everything unreal, everything shifting awkwardly across his line of vision. Grabbed hold of the edge of the table as he crossed the room towards the bathroom. Sluiced cold water onto his face, used the john. Washed his hands, flattened down his hair, took his jacket from the back of the chair by the front door, and hurried down the stairs into the diner. Told Harriet he was sorry, he had to go, no choice, important things . . .

She scowled, she frowned. She said nothing and waved him away.

Miller searched every pocket for his car keys, had to go back inside to get them. Pulled out of the front drive and aimed for the Second, stop-lights green all the way. Like he was meant to get there fast. Like someone was on his side for once.

 

He reached the Second at eight forty-eight p.m. Asked the desk sergeant if Lassiter had shown, relieved to hear he hadn’t. Took the stairs at a run, found Roth, Metz, Riehl and Feshbach in the office.

‘Coffee shop,’ Metz said. ‘Corner of L Street and Massachusetts. One of the patrol guys went in, gets talking to the girl behind the counter. He shows her the picture. She says she knows the guy. Says he comes in regular. Two, three times a week. Sometimes just orders coffee to go, other times he stays and has a sandwich. Usually lunchtime, sometimes early, like he’s en route to work. Wasn’t clear on his name. No surname at all, but says he was named John. She was very certain about that . . .’

‘And very certain about how he looked,’ Roth added. He looked agitated, got up from where he’d been sitting at the desk. ‘She was certain that this was our guy, Robert. Looked at all the pictures. Said his hair was longer in the back, grey at the sides, sort of swept back. Said his eyes were unmistakable. She was absolutely sure—’

‘So we have some people over at this coffee shop?’ Miller asked.

‘Two unmarked cars,’ Metz said. ‘One out front, one at the back. We have the place covered.’

Miller walked to the window and stood there for a moment, hands on his hips. ‘Which picture did this waitress say was most like him?’ he asked Roth.

‘Fourth in the sequence. Full head of hair, clean-shaven, you know the one?’

‘Sure,’ Miller said. He faced the window.

‘Robert?’

Miller looked back at Roth. His heart was racing. Excited, frightened in a way, like it could be everything, it could be nothing. Nothing else came close to this.

‘What is it?’ Roth asked.

‘I want to go over there,’ Miller said. ‘I want to go see this waitress.’

 

Streets were as good as empty. Straight run from New York and Fifth past Carnegie Library and up Massachusetts to L Street. Roth drove. Miller glanced back toward the library and remembered the missing hours from Catherine Sheridan’s final day. Still hard to believe that only four days had passed. Wondered what had happened to Chloe Joyce. Nine-year-old kid with nothing left from very little at all. Child Services would have her. She’d be some place with other kids whose lives had car-crashed . . .

‘It’s over there,’ Roth said, interrupting Miller’s thoughts.

Bright neon window sign - Lavazza. Warm yellow lights within made the place seem welcoming, friendly. The name over the awning read Donovan’s.

‘Which is the unmarked?’ Miller asked.

‘Other side of the street . . . see the sports goods store?’

Miller saw the sedan parked a little ways beyond it.

‘I’m going inside,’ Miller said. ‘Get a cup of coffee, speak to the waitress.’

The diner was as warm inside as it had appeared from the street. A knot of regulars at the far end of the counter-bar. Four guys, all of them in their late fifties or early sixties. They did not look up as Miller and Roth came through the door, but when Miller took a seat and asked for coffee, when the waitress came over with the jug - smiled at them each in turn, asked if they wanted anything to eat - one of the old guys nodded at Miller and said, ‘You guys after the same thing as the others, right?’

Miller smiled. It was the second time in days that someone had identified him as a policeman.

‘We should wear signs,’ Miller said. ‘It’s that obvious, right?’

‘Way you people act you might as well wear the uniform and be done with it,’ the old guy said. He laughed; the others laughed with him.

The waitress - button badge said Audrey - poured them coffee. She set the jug back on the hotplate and returned to where they sat at the counter. She was in her early forties Miller guessed. She looked tired, but undefeated. Perhaps she owned the place. Perhaps there was something more here than just a badly-paid job.

‘Take no notice,’ she said. ‘These old guys are down here ’cause their wives can’t stand to have ’em in the house any more.’

‘Guys like these I can handle,’ Miller said. He looked down the bar once more; the old guys were back talking amongst themselves. ‘So you’re Audrey.’

‘I have it on my badge here case I forget.’

‘I’m Detective Miller . . . Robert Miller.’

‘You’re not a Bob are you?’

‘No. Why? You have a thing for names?’

‘People,’ Audrey said. ‘Have a thing for people, but it’s amazing how much someone’s name can influence who they are. Like your guy for example. No way his name is John.’

Miller shook his head. ‘I don’t understand.’

Audrey shrugged. ‘Isn’t difficult. John’s the name he gives, but John isn’t the name he was given.’

‘You know this for sure?’

‘No, not for sure, but you get a sense about some people. John is a regular guy’s name. Hardworking kind of guy, you know the type. This character here? The one that other detective showed me pictures of?’ Audrey shook her head thoughtfully. ‘He’s not a regular person . . . may look like one to most folks, but I tell you he’s seen and done some things, if you know what I mean.’

Roth leaned forward. ‘You telling us you can sense this about him?’

Audrey laughed suddenly, abruptly. Her face creased like a paper bag. The lines around her eyes, the yellowing smoker’s teeth, the way her lashes were clumped in little groups of three and four with mascara - these things showed her age. ‘Like I’m psychic? Shit no.’ She glanced at the group of men at the end of the bar. ‘Jesus, you’ll have these old bastards burning me for a witch. No, I don’t sense anything. I just look, and I see what I see. I’ve been here more than fifteen years.’ She tilted her gaze out toward the front of the diner. ‘Donovan. That was my husband. Died thirteen years ago and left this behind for me to take care of. I see people come in and out of here in numbers I can’t even add up. Get used to talking to people, you know?’ She glanced at Miller. ‘You’re a cop. Cops do the same thing. They talk to people, they look, they listen, they see what they see and they figure out everything they don’t. People aren’t so hard to read.’

Miller knew what she was talking about.

‘So all I’m saying is that you get a feeling for people. You get to know which ones want company. Doesn’t matter who it is, they just roll right on in here and open up their wounds for the world. And then there’s the others. Spend several hours with a jackhammer and you don’t get more than a dozen words. John? He says what he thinks you’d expect him to say, that’s all. I mean hell, I could have read him all wrong, but I don’t think so. To me he looks like a man with a burden. That’s all I can tell you.’

‘And there’s no question at all that the man you’re thinking of is the same man as the one in the pictures you were shown?’

‘That was a gallery of whatever,’ Audrey said. ‘That was one picture with a whole bunch of different hairstyles and whatever. I saw one, and it was very close to how he looks now. That’s what he looks like. He’s the kind of guy who looks like a million other guys. Then he speaks to you, you look right at him, and you don’t mistake him for someone else.’

‘Did he scare you?’ Miller asked.

‘Scare me? Hell no. Takes an awful lot more than a customer to scare me.’

Miller smiled with her as she started laughing once more.

‘He just comes on in here, orders coffee to go, very rarely he might order a sandwich, even sit at the counter and spend a few minutes reading the newspaper and making small talk, and then he ups and goes on his way.’

‘Which way does he go?’ Roth asked.

‘Left,’ Audrey said. ‘Back towards the library and the college. ’

‘College?’ Roth asked.

‘Mount Vernon College, out the other side of the square.’

‘And that’s the way he comes from?’ Miller asked.

‘Sometimes,’ Audrey said. ‘He comes both ways, sometimes from the library, other times from the Thomas Circle way.’

Miller was silent for a while. He sipped his coffee, turned things over. ‘Want someone to come in here and put a button under the counter.’