Miller glanced at Roth. His disappointment was evident in his expression. This was old information, all of five years old, and it seemed like something had become nothing in a second.
‘The man that was with her,’ Miller asked. ‘What was he like?’
Natasha pointed at Roth. ‘Like him.’
‘Like me?’ Roth said, and for a second felt awkward.
‘Yeah, like you, you know? Shirt, tie, suit, overcoat, dark hair, a little grey at the sides . . . nervous though. He seemed nervous. Hell, I don’t know, maybe not nervous, more like he was vigilant, like watching out for something, right?’
‘And how did he look, his face, you know? Was there anything particular about how he looked?’
Natasha shrugged. ‘God knows. Not that I can remember. It was a long time ago. I wasn’t paying particular attention. The woman did the talking. He didn’t say nothing. Maybe I’d recognize him if I saw him again, I don’t know.’ She paused.
‘Something else?’
‘Nothing really,’ Natasha replied. ‘He gave me twenty bucks . . . told me to buy something nice for Chloe. Bought her a doll. She loves that doll, still has it. Only reason she would’ve remembered those people.’
‘And they just said they wanted to speak to Darryl, that was all?’
Natasha nodded.
‘And is there anything else you can tell us about this man? Distinguishing marks? Anything unusual about the way he appeared? Tattoos, scars, birthmarks maybe?’
Natasha shook her head. ‘No, there wasn’t nothing else.’
‘Sure, sure, of course,’ Miller said. ‘Anything else you can think of, Miss Joyce?’
‘I don’t know what Darryl was involved in. Hell, I don’t know . . . could be that lady came down here to get some candy for herself and that freak she was with. I saw her maybe twice or three times.’
‘You remember exactly when it was?’
‘About two weeks before Darryl died.’
‘Which was?’
‘October 7th, 2001.’
Roth was making notes in his pocketbook.
‘And you can’t think of anything else that might link Darryl King with this woman?’
‘If I could I’d tell you.’
Miller was silent for a moment. ‘What do you think, Miss Joyce?’ he asked, and there was something compassionate and understanding in his tone.
‘About what? What do I think about what?’
‘About this woman? You think it was the same woman?’
Natasha shook her head. ‘I don’t know . . . I can’t be sure. They look similar, hell they could’ve been sisters, right?’ She laughed suddenly, nervously. ‘I don’t know . . . I really don’t know.’
‘Chloe seemed certain, didn’t she?’
‘Don’t you bring her into this. Jesus Christ, whaddya want from us? Some woman came to see my dead boyfriend five years ago. I can’t tell you how they knew him or what they wanted. She might have been the same—’
‘Was she the same woman, Miss Joyce?’ Miller said, and from his inside jacket pocket he took the digitally enhanced passport photograph of Catherine Sheridan, and the picture was color, and it was a damned sight clearer than the one in the paper, and when he held it up he noticed the sudden change in Natasha’s expression, the way her eyes widened, the way she seemed silently to inhale, as if in surprise, as if in shock, perhaps in fear.
‘I think maybe . . . maybe yes . . . I can’t be sure . . .’
Miller held the picture steady.
Tears welled in Natasha’s eyes.
‘Miss Joyce?’ Miller prompted.
‘Ye-yes,’ she stammered. ‘I think it’s her . . . she’s the one who came . . .’
Miller put the picture back in his jacket pocket. He looked at Roth.
‘I don’t want to get involved,’ Natasha said. ‘This woman has nothing to do with me.’
‘I understand that, Miss Joyce, but she came down here to see Darryl, and—’
‘Jesus man, that was five years ago, you know? Darryl’s dead. Now this woman’s dead as well. For God’s sake, I have a kid.’ She stopped suddenly, looked at Miller closely. ‘You have children?’
Miller shook his head.
Natasha turned to Roth. ‘You have kids . . . you look like you have kids.’
‘Three,’ Roth said.
Natasha turned back to Miller. ‘He understands. Ask him. He knows what it’s like when you have kids. I don’t know what the fuck this woman got herself into, and I sure as hell don’t know why she came down here looking for Darryl, but this is not the kind of shit I want round my daughter. I spent God knows how long keeping her safe from all the bullshit that Darryl brought home with him.’ She breathed deeply, tried to gather herself together. ‘We survived it, you know? We fucking survived all of it. God, sometimes I thought we wouldn’t, but we did. Now it’s over, you understand? I told you what I know . . . I don’t have nothing else to tell you. You go ahead and find whoever did this thing but leave us the hell out of it, okay?’
There was silence in the kitchen for quite a while, and then Miller rose from his chair and handed Natasha Joyce a card. ‘If you do remember anything else . . .’
Natasha took the card, looked at it, turned it over. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, pushed herself away from the edge of the sink and started toward the kitchen door.
Miller and Roth got up, followed her to the front.
Miller paused in the half-open doorway. ‘I understand,’ he said quietly. ‘I might not have kids, but I understand.’
Natasha nodded, tried to smile though there were tears in her eyes. There was a moment of gratitude in her expression, and then it was gone.
Miller and Roth made their way out toward the stairwell. Natasha watched them go - all the way down the steps and out of sight.
Chloe appeared in her bedroom doorway as she locked the front door.
‘Who was that, Mommy?’
Natasha fingertipped away her tears. ‘No-one sweetie . . . just no-one at all . . .’
Chloe shrugged, turned, disappeared.
Natasha Joyce stood there for a while, her heart heavy, a sense of coolness around her, and realized that she knew almost nothing of what had ultimately happened to Darryl King, father of her child.
EIGHT
They stopped to get coffee on the way back to the Second. Miller knew they were killing time until lunch. He wanted to see Marilyn Hemmings. He wanted the autopsy results. He wanted to pursue the fact that Natasha Joyce had seen Catherine Sheridan five years before.
Back at the precinct he stood motionless at the window of the office. Roth was down the corridor fetching a soda. Right hand wall now carried two corkboards - large things, maybe six by four - and on them were pinned photos of all four victims, their respective houses and apartments, a map of the area covering the crime scenes, notes and reminders and the yellow delivery order bearing the number 315 3477.
Roth came in, handed a can to Miller.
‘The fucking number,’ Miller said. ‘I can’t think . . .’
Roth stood for a moment. He sipped Sprite noisily. Kind of tilted his head sideways. ‘Seven numbers,’ he said. ‘Coordinates for something?’
‘What do you know about coordinates?’
Roth shrugged. ‘Nothing.’
‘Same here.’
‘What about backwards . . . 7743513?’
Miller frowned, thinking. ‘Stick a zero before it and you’ve got a case number,’ he said. ‘The 077 prefix . . . they’re all three-three-two sequences with the same prefix, right? Try it on the system.’
Roth set his can down on the edge of the desk, fired up the computer. They waited, anticipatory like kids at Christmas. Punched in the number. Waited some more. CPU whirred furiously.
Miller was at the window. The sky was white and featureless. Fleeting thoughts through his mind: Kind of a life is this, for God’s sake? Chasing people who do this kind of shit to other people.
‘Fuckin’-A,’ Roth said.
‘What you got?’ Miller asked.
‘Our friend again . . . our very interesting friend. Darryl Eric King, born June 14th, 1974, arrested Thursday, August 9th, 2001 for possession of cocaine. Case number 077-435- 13.’
‘You’re fuckin’ kidding!’
Roth shook his head. ‘Serious as it gets. Look . . . Darryl King . . .’ He shifted back so Miller could see the screen more clearly. ‘Case number 077-435-13. Darryl Eric King.’
Miller was silent for a moment, his words lost amidst his disbelief. ‘This I cannot get my head around,’ he said quietly. ‘This is too much altogether.’ Again he paused for a moment, shaking his head, scanning the screen trying to comprehend the significance of what he was looking at. ‘Where was it?’ he eventually asked.
‘Seventh Precinct.’
‘Who arrested him?’
‘Arresting Officer was one Sergeant Michael McCullough . . . you know him?’
Miller shook his head. ‘What happened?’
Roth clicked pages. ‘Released the same day, eight hours later. No formal charge.’
Miller frowned. ‘How can there have been no formal charge? He was arrested with . . . how much?’
‘Three grams . . . three and a half actually.’
‘He has to have been an informant, either that or he turned something over for this McCullough guy. Maybe he gave up the dealer or something.’
‘If he was a CI there’d be a flag on the file,’ Roth said, feeling that this was so very hard to believe. Frowned, leaned forward, peered at the small print on the screen.
Miller smiled knowingly. ‘And we have the most up-to-date and organized file system in the world, right?’
‘So we go ask McCullough.’
‘Check him out . . . he still at the Seventh?’
Roth closed down the King file, opened up other things, typed McCullough’s name, waited a while. Turned and looked at Miller who was standing at the window with his back to the room. ‘He’s gone.’
Miller turned. ‘Gone? Dead gone?’
‘No, out of the department. Quit in March 2003.’
‘How many years did he do?’
‘Let’s see . . . 1987. That’s sixteen years?’
Miller nodded. ‘Lost his twenty-year pension. Who the hell quits four years from a twenty-year pension? You can burn out and do four years behind a desk on disability, for God’s sake. That’s one helluva lot of money to throw away after sixteen years on the job.’
‘Unless he had to quit,’ Roth suggested.
Miller shrugged. ‘Who the fuck knows. Not important right now. What is important is that we find him. We need to speak to him. This is a direct link between Catherine Sheridan’s murder and a previous arrest.’ He looked toward the window and shook his head. ‘Jesus,’ he said, more an expression of surprise than anything else. ‘We have to find this McCullough . . . need to get Metz onto it, anyone who isn’t onto something else more important.’ Miller walked across the room and sat down at the desk. ‘So what do we have? Chloe Joyce says she recognizes the Sheridan woman. We find out that Catherine Sheridan went down to the projects to speak with Darryl King five years ago. We can’t speak to him because he’s dead. However, he was arrested about two months before he died by this Sergeant McCullough from the Seventh. And King’s case number corresponds to the number left with the pizza company by Sheridan’s killer—’
‘Could it be that McCullough was the one who went to the projects with Sheridan?’
Miller shook his head. ‘I’m not going that far. I’m wondering why Catherine Sheridan went to see Darryl King in the first place, not just once but twice, maybe three times. And those are just the times she didn’t find him and ended up seeing this Natasha Joyce woman.’
‘You figure Catherine Sheridan had a habit?’
‘Coroner will know,’ Miller said, taking his jacket from the back of his chair. He found it hard to comprehend what had happened. He had left Natasha Joyce’s apartment annoyed and frustrated. He had walked away with the name of a dead guy, and the dead guy had come back to life in a five-year-old case. The pizza number was not a phone number, it was a case number, it was a lead, it was a great deal more than anything else they had, and it unnerved him.
Less than a mile away, there beneath the county coroner’s office complex, assistant coroner Marilyn Hemmings stood over the body of Catherine Sheridan and showed her assistant, Tom Alexander, what she’d found.
‘You see it?’ she asked.
Marilyn Hemmings was in her early thirties, young for the job perhaps, but had dealt with sufficient questions regarding her capability for such a position to warrant an edge of cynicism and hardness. Nevertheless she was an attractive woman, but the attraction came more from the air of independence she exuded. Washington’s city coroner was officially on sabbatical until January, and Marilyn had stepped into his shoes with certainty. Today that certainty was evident as she peered into the well of Catherine Sheridan’s chest.
‘A question,’ Tom Alexander said.
‘Which is?’
Alexander shrugged. ‘Just curious I s’pose. How long she would have taken anyway?’
‘No way of telling. Different people respond different ways. Depends on a number of things. You find out who her physician was yet?’
‘Still no success on that.’
‘She’s not on the county medical database?’
Alexander shook his head.
Hemmings frowned. ‘So what do we have here? Still no tie-in on the social security number. Her dentals, her fingerprints, her DNA . . . none of it flags anywhere. And now she’s not even on the county medical database.’
‘Well, she won’t appear on any of our systems unless she was arrested sometime . . . even then they only take prints and they get lost like you wouldn’t believe.’
‘Don’t get me started,’ Hemmings replied.
‘So what do we do?’
‘Finish the thing. Do the usual. Then call whoever’s on this, tell them to come down here and get the report.’
‘I spoke to them. They’re on the way down. It’s Robert Miller.’ Alexander paused, looked at Hemmings as if waiting for a response.