A Simple Act of Violence (37 page)

Eight minutes to four Lorentzen returned. He clutched a handful of papers. On his face he wore an expression of quiet determination.

‘I have moved mountains,’ he said as he sat down once more. He set the sheaf of papers on the table ahead of him, and then picked up each in turn and handed it to Miller.

‘Copy of Mr McCullough’s police department ID card, his social security card, and a copy of the address confirmation bill he used from the telephone company. I also have a copy of the original account application form he filled out.’

Miller looked through the papers, passed them in turn to Roth.

‘Mr Lorentzen, I am indebted to you,’ Miller said. ‘You really have done the most remarkable job here. The police department is grateful, very grateful indeed.’

Lorentzen was happy to have solved the problem.

Minutes later he was wishing Miller and Roth the very best in their investigation, standing at one of the front windows, watching them until they disappeared around the corner. He stayed there for a moment longer, and then he turned and went back the way he’d come.

 

Twenty-five minutes later, out through the worst of the late afternoon traffic, Al Roth and Robert Miller stood on the sidewalk facing a run-down tenement block on Corcoran Street. They had walked both sides of the street for a good ten minutes. Roth had checked the house numbers twice. There was no escaping it. The address that McCullough had given the Washington American Trust, the address that had been confirmed by an AT&T billing, was nothing more than a derelict building, seemingly unoccupied for years.

Miller stood there for some time, hands buried in his pockets, his expression a combination of disbelief and resignation. An unstoppable sense of inevitability now seemed to pervade everything to do with this case. Names that didn’t match social security numbers. Unpaid pensions to vanishing police sergeants with fictitious addresses. Photos beneath carpets, shreds of newspaper under mattresses . . . none of it really connected, and yet all of it felt the same.

‘Back to the precinct,’ Roth said. ‘Need to check on the social security number and see if AT&T ever had such a customer as Michael McCullough.’

Miller didn’t reply.

Took them another half an hour to get to the Second. By the time they arrived it was quarter after five. Roth went down to the computer suite in the basement while Miller went upstairs to see Lassiter. Lassiter was gone, some meeting at the Eighth. Had left word that if either Miller or Roth showed up they were to call him on his cell. Miller figured it could wait until they had something to tell him.

Miller checked for progress on the APB. He spoke to Metz briefly, listened to him bitch about the number of time-wasters that called up on something like this. The whole thing was dispiriting. ‘Always the way,’ he told Miller. ‘The lead that looks the most promising is a waste of fucking time, the obvious waste of time turns out to be the thing itself. I tell you, man, this is just so fucking frustrating.’

Miller left Metz in the first floor hallway and went back to his room.

Roth had returned. ‘You wanna guess?’

Miller smiled, raised his eyebrows. ‘The social security number is bullshit.’

‘Nope, the social security number is not bullshit. It really does come up with Michael McCullough, but the Michael McCullough it comes up with died in 1981.’

‘You what?’

‘That’s right. 1981. Our Sergeant McCullough, sixteen years of loyal service and retired from the Washington Police Department in 2003, has actually been dead for the better part of twenty-five years.’

‘No,’ Miller said. ‘No fucking way.’ He dropped heavily into his chair. ‘What in God’s name is going on here? Does none of this actually go back to a real person?’

Roth shook his head. ‘I called AT&T as well. They said they have no such address on their system, and as far as a customer named Michael McCullough is concerned, they did have one but he discontinued his service in 1981.’

‘Don’t tell me. Because he died, right?’

‘I can only assume it’s the same guy.’

‘Jesus Christ . . . so what does this leave us with?’

‘Nothing,’ Roth said quietly. ‘In essence we have nothing, Robert. Fact of the matter is that every lead stops dead. The person doesn’t exist. The address is bullshit. The phone bill is fabricated to get an account opened to receive a pension that never comes. None of it makes sense because it’s not supposed to make sense, and when it can’t make sense it’s because someone intended for it not to make sense. You get what I’m saying?’

Miller nodded. He took a breath, closed his eyes. He massaged his temples with his fingertips. ‘So we’re back to square one,’ he said. ‘Back right where we started.’

‘Unless something comes from this picture we have . . . unless someone identifies this guy and he does in fact have something to do with Catherine Sheridan . . . or maybe he can just tell us something about her that opens up another line of investigation.’

‘Enough,’ Miller said. ‘I’ve really had enough for today. I’m gonna cut out, go get some rest. Can you tell Metz and whoever else that if anything comes up they should call one of us?’

‘Sure I can. You think I should stay here?’

‘Go home,’ Miller said. ‘Way this thing is going I don’t think either of us are gonna be home long. Lassiter hears we’ve gone he’s gonna call us right back in.’

‘I’ll go see Metz before I leave,’ Roth said.

Miller sat there, head in his hands, for the better part of half an hour, and then he rose, exhaustion like a deadweight on his back, and made his way out of the building and down toward the car. Didn’t know what he would do. Didn’t want to think about it. Enough was enough for now.

By the time he reached Church Street he was having difficulty keeping his eyes open.

Harriet called to him as he made his way through to the stairs.

‘I’ve been up all night,’ Miller told her. ‘I am so tired, so damned tired.’

‘So go sleep,’ she said. ‘Go sleep, and when you are done sleeping you come down here and eat something and tell me what is going on with your life, okay?’

Miller smiled, reached out and took her hand.

‘Go,’ she said. ‘I will make food for you.’

Upstairs, Miller took his overcoat off and collapsed in a chair in the front room. He did not ask himself where the investigation was going. The sense of foreboding looming over his thoughts was something he tried not to think about. He did not question his own sense of responsibility for the death of Natasha Joyce. He did not ask himself if his own life was in danger. He tried not to picture Marilyn Hemmings’ face, the brief personal conversation they had shared. He did not think of Jennifer Ann Irving, the way she had looked when her body had been found. Like Natasha Joyce. Like someone had stamped her to death. The IAD investigation, the endless questions, the unaccepted answers, the sleepless nights, the newspaper reports, the assumptions, the accusations . . .

The sense that life had closed down, and then it had opened up again and presented him with something that was big enough to kill him.

He had been fooling himself. The Irving case, the death of Brandon Thomas - these things were nothing in the face of what was now happening.

It was nineteen minutes past six, evening of Wednesday the 15th of November. Catherine Sheridan had been dead for four days, Natasha Joyce a little more than twenty-six hours.

Robert Miller’s cell phone would wake him at quarter after eight, and Al Roth would be on the other end of the line, and Al Roth would tell Miller something that would stop his heart. Just for a second, no more than that, but it would stop his heart.

Two hours of calm before the storm. Just for a little while the world slowed down for Robert Miller, and for this - if nothing else - he was grateful.