A Simple Act of Violence (7 page)

‘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 understand. 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.

‘Truth is,’ Miller added, ‘that if she hadn’t ordered the pizza, we might not even know she was dead.’

A distance away from Washington’s Second Precinct, the kind of distance measured in class and culture and color, Natasha Joyce stood in the corridor outside her daughter’s Sunday school classroom and waited for eleven o’clock. Annexed to a run-down community hall, the Sunday School building had retained something of its character beneath the outward display of graffiti. The front door carried more dead-bolts and padlock hasps than Natasha could count, and along the internal walls, those places where childrens’ pictures and activity posters were displayed, you could still see the rough surface of the concrete blocks, the makeshift paint job, the chips and scars that came from neglect and lack of funding. It was a quietly desperate place, a sad reflection of Washington’s unknown quarters.

From where Natasha stood she could see through the frosted window, could see the hazy blurs of color as children ran back and forth within, could hear the rush and collision of voices, the catcalls and laughter. The bell sounded, and Natasha Joyce stepped inside the room. She smiled an acknowledgement to Chloe’s school teacher, Miss Antrobus. Nice enough lady, but uptight. She was mulatto, like a mixed-race, half and half. Couple of generations back one of the white folks did a black man, something such as this. Now Miss Antrobus didn’t belong to anyone. Not to the blacks, not to the scared whites out of Georgetown. Perhaps she found her anchor in Jesus. Perhaps she was just pretending.

Miss Antrobus looked at her again, smiled, and then made her way through the throng of kids to where Natasha stood by the door.

‘Might be nothing,’ Miss Antrobus said. Her eyes kind of went this way, that way. Appeared she was looking for something that wasn’t there.

‘I had a copy of the Post on my desk,’ she went on. ‘Article about that terrible thing . . . the woman that was murdered.’

Natasha Joyce froze quietly. She was aware of the tension in her face but tried to show nothing.

Chloe was by the door, itching to leave, like there was pepper under her skin.

‘Chloe saw the woman’s picture . . . said that she knew her.’ Miss Antrobus smiled nervously. ‘I knew it couldn’t be true . . . must have mistaken her for someone else.’

‘She does have an imagination,’ Natasha replied, and glanced at Chloe.

‘Did you hear about it?’

Natasha frowned. ‘I’m not sure I understand . . .’

‘There was a woman murdered on Saturday. Her picture was in the Post. Chloe said she recognized her. She didn’t . . . you didn’t know her did you, Miss Joyce?’

Natasha shook her head. ‘No. I can’t imagine who she thinks we might know,’ she replied, and she heard the edge of anxiety in her own voice. She tried to smile but it came out strained and artificial. She walked to the door, reached for the handle. With her left hand she waved a ‘come on’ to Chloe.

Chloe was suddenly beside her, bright-eyed, attentive. ‘Mom,’ she piped up. ‘That lady . . . you remember? She came down with that man when they were looking for Daddy, that man who gave you the money . . . you remember when he gave you that money and we bought Polly Petal . . .’

Natasha had the door open. She was hustling Chloe out and down the corridor, looking at Miss Antrobus and smiling as best she could.

‘She was in the paper today . . . that nice lady—’

Natasha glanced back at Miss Antrobus. She was watching her, watching Chloe. Expression on her face like she was ready to start calling someone.

‘Someone else,’ Natasha told Chloe, loud enough for Miss Antrobus to hear, and felt confused and upset. She didn’t understand what was happening, but she knew she was lying to her daughter.

Three blocks from the school Natasha Joyce bought the
Post
. She looked at the picture of Catherine Sheridan; she read the first two or three paragraphs of the article.

‘It’s her, isn’t it, Mom?’ Chloe said.

Natasha shook her head. ‘Don’t know, sweetie . . . looks like her. Maybe it’s just someone that looks like her.’ She hoped to God that she was right. She hoped to God that the monochrome face that looked back at her was the face of someone else entirely. Now she’d seen it twice - once on the TV, once in the paper. She was afraid. More than afraid.

‘I think it’s her, Mom . . . she has the same look in her eyes.’

‘What look is that, darling?’

Chloe shrugged. ‘Don’t know . . . maybe like she knew someone was going to get her.’

Natasha laughed nervously. She remembered standing in the cold breeze with those two people. A woman and a man. How long had it been? Five years. Jesus, it really was all of five years ago. The woman’s name was not Catherine Sheridan. And the man. Chewing gum, twitching a little, like nervous was his middle name. Like he was watching for someone, someone he believed might see them.

They’d asked after her boyfriend, Chloe’s father. His name was Darryl King, and Natasha remembered thinking, who are these people? How the hell would people like this know Darryl?

Chloe looked up; wide-eyed sweetness and light, innocent as snow. ‘Who d’you think might have killed her?’

Natasha laughed again. ‘It’s not the same lady,’ she said. ‘I’m sure it’s not the same lady.’ She folded the paper and tucked it under her arm. She took Chloe’s hand and started walking.

Didn’t say a word all the way home, and when they arrived Natasha sat in the frontroom for a while. Like she was waiting for something she knew would come. Could hear Chloe playing in her room. Natasha wondered how much Chloe had figured out. She seemed cool, seemed like nothing in the world could bother her. That was the way Natasha had always wanted Chloe to feel, like nothing in the world could ever reach her. Mom could run interference between Chloe and the world. Natasha had done it with Darryl, and though Chloe had only been four when he’d died, she knew that kids were perceptive, and sometimes the youngest were the smartest of all. It had been a thing. A real thing. A full-time kind of thing. Keeping Darryl’s world out of the line of sight, out of earshot, out of Chloe’s life. Hard, almost impossible, but Chloe seemed to have survived, seemed to be okay, seemed to have remained untouched by everything . . . until the newspaper.

She glanced at the paper again, at the face that looked back at her. She tried to remember when she’d last seen the woman. A couple of weeks before Darryl died - before Darryl King got himself killed for getting involved in things he never should have been involved in. And regardless of whether it was the same woman or not, this thing hurt Natasha. It made Natasha realize that Chloe had seen what was going on, that she had been paying attention, that she could remember all the way back to when her father died. Back to when that woman had come looking for Darryl. And the man with her, the fact that he’d taken such an interest in Chloe, like he felt guilty or something . . . Gave her twenty bucks. Just pulled twenty bucks right out of his pocket and gave it to her. And they bought that doll, the doll that took pride of place in amongst everything else for so long. Polly Petal. Stupid fucking Polly Petal doll. And now, five years on, she’d seen this woman’s face in the paper . . .