A Simple Act of Violence (62 page)

Nanci Cohen got up and walked to the window. ‘Killarney is on his way,’ she said quietly.

‘Killarney?’ Miller said.

‘James Killarney . . . the one who came after the Sheridan murder.’

‘I know who he is . . . Jesus, they’re sending him over now?’

‘Already on his way,’ Lassiter said. ‘He’ll be here before midnight. He’ll have people with him. They’re going to take everything . . . every record, every file, every shred of paper. Robey’s apartment has already been closed off. It now falls within federal jurisdiction.’

‘This isn’t right,’ Miller said. ‘This cannot be right. They can’t do this . . . for God’s sake, how can they even think about doing this?’

‘Because they are who they are,’ Nanci Cohen said. She had a cigarette in her hand and she put it in her mouth. She raised a lighter, and for a moment her face was half in shadow. ‘They made it their business to know what was going on through the reports that were sent to Killarney. Everything that we knew they also knew within a few hours.’

‘They were never going to let us complete this thing were they?’ Miller asked. ‘I mean, for God’s sake, who the fuck is this guy Robey?’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t tell me . . . I know who he is . . .’

‘They made a point of confirming that he isn’t employed in any government office or department,’ Roth said.

‘Point being that they answered a question that we never asked,’ Cohen said. ‘Which can mean only one thing—’

‘That he is government,’ Miller said. ‘But who? FBI? CIA? NSA? Department of Justice?’

Lassiter rose from his desk. ‘This conversation isn’t happening, ’ he said quietly.

Miller looked at him; saw Frank Lassiter as he didn’t believe he’d ever seen him before. A man scared. A frightened man.

‘This conversation isn’t happening in this office right now,’ he repeated. ‘We’re going home . . . me and ADA Cohen are going to our respective homes, and you guys are going to wait here for Federal Agent James Killarney and his people to arrive. You’re going to give them access to everything that you have on this case, and you’re going to let them take it away. You’re not going to withhold anything from them, and you’re going to accept the fact that this is no longer an active police department investigation. It is now a federal matter, and we’re going to leave it to them to handle. When they’ve gone, you’re going to go home too. You’re going to spend the weekend with your families or friends . . .’ Lassiter paused, took a deep breath, and then sat down again. He gripped the arms of his chair. His knuckles were as white as his face. ‘We’re going to come back to work on Monday, and we’re going to take up some new cases—’

‘This is just so much bullshit!’ Miller interrupted, his voice insistent, commanding. ‘I don’t believe you’re going to let them do this.’

‘Let them do this?’ Lassiter said, his voice equally loud. ‘Let them do this? What the hell are you talking about? Do you have any fucking idea who you’re dealing with here? This is the federal fucking government, Miller. That’s where we are right now. Washington, D.C., and the federal government is telling me that a case I am investigating is being turned over to one of their own departments, and . . . God almighty, you think you have any authority over what’s happening here? You think I do? What do you want me to say? You want to call them back right now . . . oh shit, why didn’t I think of that? I’ll just give the chief of staff of the justice department a quick call and tell him to go fuck himself. Hell . . . fuck, Jesus fucking Christ—’

‘Enough!’ Nanci Cohen snapped. ‘Wanted to listen to language like this I’d go down the projects. You see what’s happening here? You people have to work together on Monday morning. This thing is being taken off of you by the highest authority in the land and they can do whatever the hell they like. No-one has a choice here. You’ - she pointed at Miller - ‘You have to do what he says because he’s your captain. And you,’ she added, turning to Lassiter. ‘You have to appreciate the frustration these guys are experiencing. You’re the only one they can be pissed off at right now, so let them be pissed off. It isn’t anyone’s fault, for God’s sake. We took this thing on, we fucked up . . . now I’m even starting to sound like you people.’ She gathered up her briefcase, her purse, a PDA and her cell phone from the corner of Lassiter’s desk. ‘I’m going home,’ she said. ‘Suggest you do the same.’

Lassiter got up. He walked her to the door, opened it, saw her out. He closed the door and returned to his desk.

‘She’s right,’ Lassiter said. ‘We end this thing now, we go home. Monday we talk about it . . . or we don’t talk about it. Jesus, I don’t know. I can’t even think straight right now.’ Lassiter looked at Miller, then at Roth, and in his eyes was something that challenged them not only to help him understand what was happening, but also to understand the intractability of his position.

‘Monday,’ Miller said.

‘Monday it is,’ Lassiter replied. ‘You did good, both of you. You took this thing as far as you could.’

‘We took this thing as far as we were allowed—’

Lassiter raised his hand. ‘The case has ended, as have the discussions about it.’

‘It’s not worth our lives, is it?’ Miller said. ‘I mean, if we pushed on this then they’d find some reason to—’

Lassiter reached out and closed his hand around Miller’s forearm. ‘Robert,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll say this once, and then I’ll not—’

‘I got it,’ Miller said. ‘I got it completely.’

‘So go downstairs. Wait for Killarney. Be polite. In fact, don’t say a thing to the guy . . . just whatever you need to, nothing more. Let them take whatever, okay? Give me your word on this.’

Miller looked down, looked at Roth, looked back to Lassiter. ‘You have my word.’

‘Good,’ Lassiter replied. ‘I can’t fault what you did. Go home, spend the weekend with your family. Put this thing behind you, okay?’

Lassiter opened the door and watched as Roth and Miller made their way down the hallway to the stairwell.

When they were gone he closed the door quietly, walked back to his desk and sat down. He believed he’d never felt so tired, or so old, in his life.

 

By the time James Killarney and his six Federal Bureau agents left the Washington Second Precinct building, by the time they drove away in three SUVs carrying everything that Miller and Roth possessed regarding the Ribbon Killer case, it was after two a.m. They left behind an empty office, a room that looked like it had never been occupied. All that remained were trash baskets, ashtrays and blank notepads.

The weekend had already started, and neither Miller nor Roth had had a break since the 11th of November.

‘You wanna come over Sunday and have dinner?’ Roth asked Miller as they stood outside the precinct house. The night was cold, the sky clear, and Miller could see his own breath in the air.

He shook his head. ‘I’m gonna sleep,’ he said. ‘I’m gonna sleep until Monday morning and then decide whether I want this job any more.’

Roth smiled understandingly. ‘You’ll want the job,’ he said quietly.

‘Makes you so sure of that?’ Miller asked.

‘It’s in your blood, my friend . . . this shit is in your blood.’

 

Less than an hour later Robert Miller stood at his apartment window overlooking Church Street. He stood silently, could barely hear the sound of his own breathing, and then he slowly took a folded piece of paper from his pocket. He turned his back to the window and walked to the coffee table in front of the sofa. He unfolded the paper, pressed the creases out on the hard surface of the table, and looked at the endless rows of letters and numbers that Riehl and Littman and Feshbach had transcribed from Catherine Sheridan’s books.

It was the only thing he still possessed from the case. A single sheet of paper scattered with the cryptic representation of more than thirty executions. For that’s what they were, of this he felt sure. Executions. For what reason, he did not know. Nor was he sure if John Robey - or Michael McCullough, or any other of the multitude of names he imagined had been used by this man - had been responsible. Regardless, the motive was the important thing, the rationale behind this . . . this nightmare had been created, had been shared by the world, and had now been taken away from him without question or choice or decision.

Quarter after three in the morning, Miller shrugged off his clothes and let them fall to the floor of his bedroom. He lay on the bed and dragged the covers over him. He was asleep within minutes. He did not dream; he had neither the energy nor the will.

‘I said to Zalman, didn’t I, Zalman? I said, he has left. Robert has found a girl and he has left. That’s what I said.’ Harriet poured more coffee. It was nearly one in the afternoon, Saturday the 18th. Miller had slept until noon, had risen, showered, slouched around the apartment for half an hour and then gone downstairs to the diner. He had endured the expected barrage of questions. Where have you been? How come you look so bad? What is this, you can’t shave when you get up in the morning? What have you been eating? You’ve been eating junk food and Coca-Cola again, haven’t you? This continued until he put his arms around Harriet Shamir and pulled her close.

‘I am a detective of the Washington Police Department,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Upstairs I have a gun. If you don’t stop with the questions already I will go upstairs and get it . . .’

Harriet wriggled her way out of his arms and hit his shoulder repeatedly with a wooden spoon. She told him to sit down and shut up and mind his manners and wait until some lunch was ready. ‘So go - go upstairs and get your gun . . . you hear what he said to me, Zalman?’

‘I heard what he said,’ Zalman replied.

‘What are you going to do about it, eh?’

‘Was going to go and get it for him.’

Miller laughed. ‘See,’ he said. ‘We men stick together.’

‘Yes, you,’ Harriet said. ‘Like shit on shoes.’

‘Jesus, Harriet, I can’t believe you said that.’

‘Hey, what’s not to believe? I said it. Now shut up - and that means both of you,’ she added, raising her voice so Zalman could hear her from the front of the diner.

Harriet brought coffee. She sat for a moment, her hand over Miller’s.

‘So tell me,’ she said. ‘This thing you were doing is finished?’

‘Basically, yes,’ Miller replied.

‘Yes is yes, no is no. Basically yes? This I don’t understand.’

‘The case was transferred to someone else.’

‘Because you were not working hard enough? Because you eat badly and don’t sleep enough and got lazy, right?’

Miller shook his head. ‘No, because I was working too hard.’

Harriet smiled in a self-congratulatory way. ‘See, there is someone else where you work who has some sense about them. I am telling you this forever, that you work too hard, yes?’

‘I don’t mean it like that,’ Miller said, and then he felt something, a small sense of anxiety, paranoia almost. As if whatever he now said regarding this matter would be known by other people, would be listened to and analyzed. He had slept. He felt better, he needed to eat, sure, but nevertheless he was still thinking with a clearer mind and straighter head than he’d possessed the night before. The Robey case had been spirited away from them. Taken right out of their hands by people he didn’t know, would never know. It was not something that Miller even wished to try and understand. He wanted some distance from it. He wanted to spend some time with people who knew nothing about Catherine Sheridan or John Robey or how the government had created its own crack cocaine epidemic in the ’80s and ’90s. . . .

‘So how do you mean it?’ Harriet asked.

‘It’s not something I can talk about.’

‘But this thing is finished for you. I know I agreed that I would never ask about your work as long as it was still going on, but if this thing is now finished . . .’

‘It’s not finished,’ Miller said. ‘It’s been taken over by another department.’

‘But not because you didn’t work hard enough?’

‘Right.’

‘So why? Because of something that someone didn’t want you to find out?’

Miller flinched. He knew he’d reacted, and that was the last thing he’d wanted to do. Harriet would now be relentless in her questioning if she believed that Miller was hiding something. Usually it related to girls, but this time . . .

‘So tell me,’ she said.

Miller held her hand, looked right back at her. ‘You ever in a situation where you were concerned for your own life?’

‘Concerned for my own life?’ she said. ‘I am seventy-three years old, Robert. I was eight years old when the Germans came and murdered my parents. I survived the concentration camps, you know?’

‘I know, Harriet, I know.’

‘I’ve been in a situation where I have held a small crust of bread in my hand and that would have been enough to be executed right where I stood. But I held it, and I didn’t let it show on my face, and I took that piece of bread for my sister.’

‘I didn’t mean to—’

‘Hey!’

Miller looked up.

‘How long have we been family? Tell me what’s happening here. So what’s the worst that could happen? If this is so bad then you’re already in as much trouble as you can be, and I am seventy-three years old. Sometimes I think to just lie in bed and starve to death, you know? Sometimes I just can’t be bothered, but you know what Zalman says?’

Miller shook his head.

‘He says get up and go to work or you’ll turn out no better than that lazy bastard who lives above the diner.’

Miller looked at her. He frowned for a moment, and then he realized what she’d said.

They started laughing together, loudly, an uproarious noise that brought Zalman through to the back. He stood in the doorway watching them.

‘You people better not be laughing about me,’ he said.

‘You?’ Harriet said. ‘I wish that you were so funny to make me laugh like this.’