A Simple Act of Violence (32 page)

‘My take?’ Miller asked. ‘I’m not the forensic pathologist—’

‘I’m not the detective,’ said Hemmings interjected.

‘I think Sheridan was a copycat,’ Miller said. ‘I think it was a copycat. And then our guy read the papers, watched the TV, learned who we were, followed us, saw who we were talking to, and then killed Natasha Joyce.’

‘That’s Tom Alexander’s opinion as well,’ Hemmings said, ‘but I don’t have it. The one thing. That’s what you call it, right? The signature for this guy? The one thing.’

‘I can hope, can’t I?’ Miller said.

‘You can hope. Democratic society, Detective Miller. Hell, you can pretty much do anything you please.’

‘As our friend has done,’ Roth said.

‘He hasn’t done what he pleases here, Detective Roth, he’s done what he needed to do. This kind of thing isn’t done for pleasure. Jesus, this shit is about as far from pleasure as you can get for these people. You ever read any books about this stuff?’

‘Only the required reading—’

‘Up there,’ Hemmings said, and indicated a shelf above the filing cabinet.

From where he stood Miller could read the spines of several of the volumes: Geberth, Practical Homicide: Tactics, Procedures and Forensic Techniques; Ressler and Shachtmann, Whoever Fights Monsters; Turvey, Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis; Ressler, Burgess and Douglas, Sexual Homicides: Patterns and Motives and Egger’s The Killer Amongst Us: An Examination of Serial Murder and its Investigation.

‘A little hobby of mine,’ Hemmings explained. ‘Extracurricular interest you might say.’

‘So the deal with these people—’ Roth started.

‘The deal,’ Hemmings said, ‘is that they have to do this. This is not a question of predilection or anything else. It isn’t like they wake up one day and say, “Hell, shit, of course, I’m gonna be a serial killer. Why in God’s name didn’t I think of this before?” This is not a matter of choice at all. There’s a drive somewhere, a really basic and fundamental impulse, a compulsion to do this stuff, and the vast majority of these people spend most of their time trying to hold all this shit inside. They don’t want to go out and rip people to pieces, they have no decisional concept at all. This, to them, is like putting out the garbage when you’re sat watching a ballgame with a couple of beers. You don’t want to, but you have to.’

‘Interesting analogy,’ Miller said. ‘And that helps us how?’

‘It doesn’t, except from the viewpoint that you’re looking for someone who needs to do this thing, rather than wants to do it. That’s a different angle, a different perspective to look at. I don’t know what else to tell you. I’m not a clinical psychologist or anything else. Personally, I don’t give a lot of credence to whatever passes itself off as psychiatry. Psychiatry is not a science in the same way as medicine and forensics. You want anything done on this, don’t talk to any psychs. These guys’ll have you inspecting your own navel and wondering whether or not you might have been the one to do it.’

Miller smiled. ‘That’s a little harsh isn’t it?’

‘You don’t see the damage that psych drugs do to people.’

‘I don’t, no,’ Miller replied. He stood straight, buttoned his jacket.

‘Where to now?’ Hemmings asked. ‘PD admin unit . . . we have to find a disappeared cop.’ Hemmings smiled, followed Miller to the door. Roth was ahead of them up the corridor and, as Miller started to follow him, Hemmings touched the sleeve of his jacket.

‘You dealing with this thing?’ she asked.

Miller frowned, smiled quizzically. ‘Dealing with what exactly?’

‘What’s happening here . . . this girl, the one you were questioning, the fact that whoever this guy is knows who you are, knows who you were talking to . . .’

‘Are you asking if I feel paranoid?’

She shook her head. ‘Hell, all of us feel paranoid every once in a while. I was thinking more along the lines of threatened.’

Miller tried to let nothing show in his face. ‘He’s after women,’ he said. ‘He kills women. That’s what he does. He doesn’t kill police.’

‘And Natasha Joyce . . . she had a little girl, right?’

‘Chloe,’ Miller said. ‘Nine years old.’

‘She with relatives?’

‘Child Services.’

Hemmings looked away for a moment, thoughtful perhaps.

‘What?’ Miller asked.

‘Nothing.’

A moment of something between them. Miller sensed it, and felt awkward.

‘What did you want to say?’ Hemmings asked.

Miller glanced at Roth. Roth started to walk back towards them but Miller raised his hand and stopped him.

‘Sometime—’ Miller started.

‘Sometime you wondered whether we could go out or something?’

Miller nodded. ‘Or something . . . yes, maybe we could go out and have some dinner or something.’

‘You always this sure of yourself?’

‘This isn’t a movie,’ Miller said. ‘I’m a normal person. I don’t have a collection of smart one-liners. I’m not a charming person. I’m a beaten-to-shit police detective.’

‘Makes the prospect of going out with you very enticing.’

‘You’re making fun of me,’ Miller said. ‘Forget I asked the question.’

‘You didn’t ask the question. I asked the question for you.’

‘You caught me on the back step,’ he said. ‘I didn’t come here to ask you out.’

‘Sure you didn’t,’ Hemmings said. ‘You wanna know something?’

Miller raised his eyebrows.

‘Couple of times I’ve been out with policemen . . . and you want to know what I think about them?’

‘Go for it.’

Hemmings smiled at Miller’s sarcastic edge. ‘They spend their whole working lives dealing with all the situations where the police have to be involved, know what I mean?’

Miller frowned.

‘They begin to believe that every situation in the world has something to do with the law being violated, with domestic abuse, with death and suicide and drug overdoses—’

‘So what’re you telling me? That I should stop taking my work home? Jesus, I get enough of that from Roth and his wife.’

‘I do the body parts stuff here . . . right here in forensics. I spend my working day cutting people up and having a look inside. Imagine what would happen if I took my work home.’

‘Think that’s a little bit different—’

‘Physically yes, mentally and emotionally no. You carry all this shit around in your head you’re going to—’

‘Okay, okay,’ Miller interjected. ‘Would it be alright if I called you? I don’t know when we’re going to see the light of day on this thing. I’ve got my precinct captain, he’s got the chief, the chief has got the mayor—’

‘I understand, Detective Miller. You know where I am. You call me when you get some breathing space and we’ll have this conversation then, okay?’

Miller felt no less awkward.

‘One thing on this,’ Hemmings said. ‘The thing about looking for someone who has to do this, not who wants to, right?’

‘I got it,’ Miller said.

 

Outside, walking down the steps and back toward the car, Roth said, ‘What was the deal there? Looked like she was hitting on you.’

‘She was.’

‘Okay, okay, okay . . . so now we have something here.’

‘Jesus, man, will you leave it out. I spoke to the woman. I might call her. What the fuck is it with you?’

‘I have an idea,’ Roth said. ‘Maybe we could go to a game together, you know? Like me and Amanda, you and Marilyn Hemmings. Hey, that’s a good idea. I’m gonna call Amanda and tell her—’

‘Tell her nothing,’ Miller said. ‘You’re not gonna call her and you’re not gonna tell her anything. Nothing at all is going on here. This is not the way my life works. Right now the only thing going on in my life is a visit to the Police Department Administrations Unit. We’re gonna go talk to someone in pensions and they’re gonna tell us where to find Michael McCullough. That’s my life right now, Al, and I really haven’t got time for anything else, okay?’

Roth said nothing.

‘Okay?’ Miller repeated.

‘Okay, okay . . . Jesus, what the fuck shit is this? What the fuck—’

‘What the fuck nothing, Al. Get in the fucking car.’

 

 

 

 

I didn’t speak
.