A Simple Act of Violence (74 page)

Miller cut in. ‘It’s okay . . . I don’t need any explanations.’

Lassiter and Cohen fell silent.

‘I’m going to take a week off,’ Miller said. ‘I want to take a week’s leave if that’s okay.’

Lassiter was nodding. ‘Sure, sure . . . take a week, two if you want.’

Miller stood up.

Nanci Cohen rose with him. ‘The bigger the lie . . .’

Miller smiled. ‘The more easily it will be believed.’

‘So what are you going to do?’ she asked.

‘About what? This case? Robey?’ Miller shook his head. ‘Nothing . . . that’s what I’m going to do. Not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t think it’s worth throwing any more lives away for this thing.’

‘I’d have to agree with you on that point,’ she replied. She reached out, touched Miller’s arm. ‘You take care, eh?’

‘I’ll try,’ he said. He turned, opened the door and stepped out into the corridor.

‘As well as anyone who knew him,’ Miller said.

Sarah Bishop shook her head. ‘It’s so sad,’ she said quietly. They were seated at the same table in the same gymnasium canteen where they’d first met.

She looked different to Miller this time. She looked like someone with a past.

‘He was so young . . . I mean, he was so . . . he seemed fine, you know?’

‘Hereditary I think,’ Miller said. ‘Weak heart. I don’t know what to say. He was a good man . . . and he thought a lot of you.’

Sarah nodded, didn’t speak. She looked down at the white envelope on the table, her name printed neatly across the front. The edge of the check protruded from the uppermost corner.

Miller took a card from his pocket. ‘Three numbers on there. The precinct, my home, my cell phone. Anything you need, you call me. John asked me to keep an eye on you, make sure you were okay.’

‘It doesn’t make sense . . . I mean, in all the years I’ve known him I can’t think of ten times we’ve spoken. Never really had much to say for himself. I don’t even know what my parents are going to think.’

‘You can tell them he was a generous man with no family who wanted to support your hopes for the Olympics.’

‘You really think that’s the truth? I mean, I cannot think of any reason he’d want to leave me so much money.’

Miller shrugged. ‘I don’t know . . . he didn’t tell me.’

Sarah picked up the envelope. ‘Will you come with me?’ she said. ‘Will you come and tell my parents what happened? They didn’t know him. They are going to . . . like freak out, you know? They’re going to freak out completely when they see this.’

Miller reached out and held her hand for a moment.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll come see your parents.’

She smiled, looked away for a moment, and when she looked back at Miller there was something in her eyes, a moment of understanding perhaps, a moment of recognition.

And then suddenly - like a ghost - it was gone.

‘Hard work,’ Harriet said. ‘He’s hard work . . . but I think he will be worth it.’ She smiled, reached out her hand and closed it over Marilyn Hemmings’.

‘Tell me a man who isn’t,’ Marilyn replied. ‘They’re all long-term investments, doubtful returns.’

‘Take Zalman,’ she said. ‘Fifty-two years we are married and still . . . ach, I don’t know what to say. We do what we can, eh?’

Miller appeared in the doorway at the bottom of the stairwell. ‘What is this?’ he said.

Marilyn Hemmings raised her eyebrows.

‘See . . . he cleans up good doesn’t he?’ Harriet said.

‘What’s going on here . . . is this some sort of conspiracy . . .’

‘Enough already,’ Harriet said. She rose to her feet, walked towards Miller.

‘She’s a good girl this one,’ she whispered. ‘You have to be very stupid to mess this up.’

Miller frowned disapprovingly.

Marilyn Hemmings got up, straightened her skirt. ‘You ready?’ she asked.

‘He’s as ready as he’s ever gonna be,’ Harriet said. ‘So off with you . . . go have a good time, okay? I’ll be gone when you come back . . . if you come back.’

‘Harriet,’ Miller said.

Marilyn smiled, held out her hand. ‘It was wonderful to meet you.’

Harriet took Marilyn’s hand, held it for a moment. ‘The feeling’s mutual, my dear. Now away and enjoy yourselves . . . I have things to do.’

Miller stepped forward, extended his hand to show Marilyn Hemmings the door, and walked her out to the car.

‘Nice people,’ she said.

Miller nodded. ‘They are.’

‘She cares a lot about you.’

Miller smiled, unlocked the passenger door and held it open.

He walked around the front and got inside.

‘So where are we going?’ Marilyn asked.

‘Going to eat, but I want to make a brief stop,’ Miller said. ‘If you don’t mind, there’s someone I want to see. It won’t take a moment.’

Marilyn nodded. ‘Sure, of course.’

They drove in near silence. It didn’t concern Marilyn Hemmings that Miller didn’t speak. It felt comfortable. That was all she could say. Being around him seemed to be comfortable all of a sudden.

The death of John Robey was behind them, the better part of two weeks back, and things had happened, life-things, and work had continued, and the world had gone on without Miller for a little while, and he was due back soon. Miller had earned breathing space, and she had not called him for fear of intruding.

He had called her that morning, almost perfunctory in his manner, but it was okay.

‘Hey.’

‘Hey back.’

‘How’s things?’

‘Okay . . . they’re okay. You?’

A moment’s hesitation. ‘I’ve slept a lot.’

That had made her smile.

‘I called . . .’

Silence, but not awkward. Like he’d thought of what to say and then it hadn’t sounded right.

‘You did,’ she prompted.

‘Tonight. I wondered, you know?’

‘What I’m doing?’

‘Sure, what you’re doing.’

‘Why . . . you wanna go out or something?’

‘Yes . . . figured it would be good . . . you know, if you wanted to and everything.’

She smiled again. It was like being asked to a prom.

‘I’d like that, Robert.’

‘You want to come here, or you want me to come get you?’

‘I’ll meet you . . . give me your address.’

She wrote it down.

‘Seven?’

‘Give or take.’

‘Give or take . . . okay. Later then.’

‘Later, Robert.’

The call had ended.

Now he sat beside her, driving the car, going someplace she didn’t know. Made a left, another left, three or four blocks and then slowed to a halt outside a large three-storey brownstone walk-up.

‘You want to wait here, or you want to come with me?’ he asked. ‘I won’t be long.’

‘I’ll wait here if that’s okay.’

He left the car, keys still in the ignition.

He closed the door and walked toward the steps of the house.

Marilyn turned the key, got power for the radio, switched it on. She found a jazz station. Norah Jones. Someone like that.

She watched as Robert Miller went up to the door. He rang the bell, waited, rang it again.

A light came on back of the frosted pane centering the door.

Words were exchanged before the door was opened. Middle-aged woman, in her arms a small child, couldn’t have been more than eighteen months old. The woman seemed puzzled, and then she smiled and nodded, and she turned and seemed to call back into the house.

A child appeared - ten, eleven years old. Black girl, her hair tied back in symmetrical pigtails. She carried a Polly Petal doll. She held out her hand and shook with Miller.

The child disappeared back into the house.

Miller said something else, took an envelope from his pocket and gave it to the woman. The woman said nothing, looked like she didn’t know what to say.

Miller reached out and touched the toddler’s cheek, a gentle moment, and then he turned and walked back towards the car.

The woman watched him from the stoop.

Miller got into the car, started the engine, pulled away.

Marilyn Hemmings turned and watched the woman as she stood looking down the street, watching the car until they turned the corner at the end and disappeared from view.

‘Who was that?’ Marilyn asked.

‘She’s taking care of someone.’

‘You gave her what . . . some money?’

Miller nodded.

‘How much?’

Miller smiled, shrugged his shoulders. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Who was the girl . . . the one with the pigtails?’

‘Just a girl.’

‘Natasha Joyce’s kid?’

Miller turned and looked at Marilyn Hemmings. ‘Now how would I know where to find Natasha Joyce’s kid . . . that’s confidential, you know? Child Services an’ all that.’

Marilyn Hemmings said nothing in response.

Miller looked back at the road.

‘You are a strange man, Robert Miller,’ she said after some little while.

‘Strange is as strange does,’ he said quietly.

‘Sure, of course . . . now you sound like Forrest Gump.’

‘Life is like a box of chocolates . . .’

She swung her hand sideways, thumped him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t even start that shit,’ she said, but she was laughing, and then he was laughing too, and whatever had happened back there with the little girl and the woman on the doorstep, however much money Miller might have given her, it didn’t matter any more.

After a while she asked him, ‘You wanna talk about what happened?’

‘What?’ he said. ‘With Robey?’

‘Sure, with Robey.’

Miller smiled. His expression was one of philosophical resignation. ‘That’s the point, Marilyn . . . nothing did happen.’

‘But—’

‘We’ll be there soon,’ he said. ‘Italian okay with you?’

She hesitated, and then she said, ‘Yes, of course. Italian is fine.’

He parked up ahead of a small trattoria with burgundy awnings, and through the wide front window she could see small tables and candlelit booths.

He opened the door for her, and as she came out she looked up at him.

‘One day?’ she said.

Miller paused for a moment, turned and looked toward the horizon. ‘I don’t know what to tell you,’ he said quietly. ‘Somewhere I lost about two weeks of my life . . . and I don’t think I’ll ever get them back. It all seems so vague and unreal, and I don’t even understand everything that happened.’ He looked down at the ground, and then he turned back toward her.

‘I’m alive,’ he said. ‘A lot of people died but I’m alive. I don’t know what else to say, Marilyn. Something happened, and then it was all over, and a lot of people are very concerned that no-one ever knows what happened. I’m just gonna do what I can to salvage whatever good I can out of it all.’

‘And this doesn’t worry you? That you know all this . . . what happened with Robey, the people that were killed, and you can say nothing?’

Miller closed his eyes. Took a deep breath.

‘Today,’ he said quietly. ‘Today it doesn’t worry me.’

Marilyn Hemmings reached out her hand and touched the side of Miller’s face. ‘I was right about you,’ she said. ‘I went with my intuition and I think I was right about you.’

Miller looked at her questioningly.

‘Brandon Thomas . . . did he fall or was he pushed?’

Miller looked at her, questioning. ‘Did you ever doubt that?’

‘Honestly? Yes, I did doubt it.’

‘Then you don’t know me.’

‘But now I’m gonna get a chance, right?’

Miller smiled. ‘I hope so, yes.’

‘So we go eat.’

Miller smiled. ‘We go eat.’

He held the door open for her, paused for a moment looking back toward the skyline.

He did not believe Robey had died for nothing, nor Catherine Sheridan.

Perhaps the world would never know the truth of what had happened, but Miller believed that with the death of James Killarney and Walter Thorne, the intelligence community now silently staggering beneath the weight of what Robey had done, the sacred monster had, at least, been wounded.

Perhaps if wounded again, Miller thought, the sacred monster would give up its secrets and die. But that - in truth - was another war for yet another day.

For now, perhaps for a little while longer, the world would be permitted to believe that Catherine Sheridan’s death had been nothing more than a simple act of violence.

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Sound of gunshots, like bones snapping.

New York: its endless clamor, harsh metallic rhythms and hammering footsteps, staccato and relentless; its subways and shoeshines, gridlocked junctions and yellow cabs; its lovers’ quarrels; its history and passion and promise and prayers.

New York swallowed the sound of gunshots effortlessly, as if it were no more significant than the single beat of a lonely heart.

No-one heard it amidst such a quantity of life.

Perhaps because of all these other sounds.

Perhaps because no-one was listening.

Even the dust, caught in a shaft of moonlight through the third-floor hotel window, moved suddenly by the retort of the shots, resumed its errant but progressive path.

Nothing happened, for this was New York, and such lonely and undiscovered fatalities were legion, almost indigenous, briefly remembered, effortlessly forgotten.

The city went on about its business. A new day would soon begin, and nothing so inconsequential as a death possessed the power to delay it.