by R.J. Ellory
Frances’ expression said everything that needed to be said; she seemed to understand exactly what Natasha was talking about. ‘Tell me what you know,’ she said. ‘You tell me what you know about what happened back then, and then I’ll tell you everything else, okay?’
Natasha sighed deeply. She leaned back and closed her eyes for a moment. When she looked up Frances was waiting patiently, ready to hear everything Natasha had to say.
Miller stood for a long while looking at Catherine Sheridan’s front room.
In daylight the complete absence of character was clearly visible. There were no flowers, no ornaments, no pictures on the walls. He and Roth had been through the kitchen and found the basics - cutlery, pans, a skillet, a wok. There were the usual cleaning products and cloths, a box with brown and black shoe cream preparations, an applicator, a buffer. There was no pizza wheel, no chopsticks, no pot plants, no spice rack or yolk separator. They went through the cupboards and drawers. They found everything one would need in a kitchen sufficient to cater to the most simple and pedestrian of tastes, but what they did not find - at least from Miller’s perspective - was anything personal.
He stood silently surveying the accoutrements and utensils spread across the counter-top.
‘It’s not right,’ he told Roth. ‘Something about this place is just not right.’
‘How long was she here?’ Roth asked.
‘According to the file, three, three and a half years, something like that.’
Roth looked toward the window, seemed distracted for a moment. ‘You know what this reminds me of?’ he eventually said. ‘Reminds me of a film I saw one time . . . guy was found dead in Central Park, fully clothed, shoes, suit, tie, shirt, the whole works, even had on an overcoat, but every label had been removed. I mean everything that would give some kind of indication of where he might have come from, where he lived . . . everything was removed. No wallet, no pocketbook, no keys, no driver’s license, even no labels inside his jacket.’
‘Like someone’s cleaned the place,’ Miller said. ‘Like someone went through this place and took away everything that would tell us who she was.’
‘Did you see any of the other places?’ Roth asked.
Miller shook his head. ‘You?’
‘I only saw the Rayner woman. That was back in July. I visited the scene once. It was nighttime. I didn’t see a great deal. I could have gone back there the next day but I didn’t. Couple of uniforms went over there with the forensics people, that was all.’
‘This hasn’t really become something until now, has it?’
‘Something?’ Roth asked. ‘Like how d’you mean something? ’
‘First one, Margaret Mosley . . . that was just a murder. I say just a murder, but it was an isolated incident. Looks like a sex crime. Shit happens, you know? Second one, the one you saw, that was a coincidence, right? Like the old saying, first time is happenstance, second time coincidence, third time you have a conspiracy. So the third one comes along, Barbara Lee, and now we have a pattern. Fourth one and we’re right in serial territory. This is how it reads to the suits in the mayor’s office. Now we’ve got something to worry about. Now word gets around, people forget about the elections, they remember that there was something there at the back of their minds. They start writing letters to the Post, the press is all over the place wanting to know what we’re doing about this murder epidemic.’
‘And this one is the important one, isn’t it,’ Roth said, more a statement than a question.
‘This one’s different,’ Miller replied. He walked to the table and sat down facing his partner. ‘Way I feel . . . God, I don’t know what I feel. I feel like it isn’t the same. There’s something about it that feels like a copycat, but it can’t be - unless someone within the department did it, you know? Anyway, regardless of who might or might not have done this, there’s something different about it. I don’t just mean the pizza guy, the fact that our guy killed her and then called someone over here to find her. Besides that, there’s something about the way this feels that tells me . . .’ Miller shook his head. ‘Fuck Al, I don’t know. The pizza thing and this Joyce woman, and the case number on Darryl King being the same as the phone number, you know? The news clipping under the mattress . . . maybe that’s something, maybe it isn’t.’
‘Did have a thought,’ Roth said. ‘That it could be a copycat not because the guy had access to any files or records or anything, but because he knows the original killer.’
‘What? Like there’s two of them?’
‘It’s just another explanation for the similarity.’
‘Hell, that’s even more horrifying than if he’s a cop or something.’
‘Okay, so now we need something that tells us who she was. Right now she’s no-one. Right now her social security number belongs to someone named Isabella Cordillera, and as far as we can tell there is no-one alive named Isabella Cordillera.’
‘Which language is that?’ Miller asked.
Roth shook his head. ‘Spanish, Portuguese maybe?’
‘We need to check it out, maybe there’s something there.’
‘So what now? You ready to go through this place with me?’
Miller rose from the chair and removed his jacket. ‘Upstairs, ’ he said. ‘We start upstairs and move down.’
Roth followed, draped his jacket over the back of the chair, started toward the stairwell.
‘A what?’ Natasha asked.
‘An informant,’ Frances Gray said. ‘Darryl was working with the police at the time of his death. He gave them a significant amount of very valuable information regarding the drug supply lines running through that part of the city. As a result of the investigation—’
‘He died,’ Natasha interjected.
Frances Gray nodded. ‘Yes, he did die, but he helped put a number of key suppliers in prison.’
Natasha Joyce felt tears break surface tension and roll down her cheeks. She did not know what to say. She was surprised, very much so, but in some way she was also relieved. Relieved that Darryl had tried to do something to repair the damage he’d done . . .
‘Wait up,’ she said. ‘He was busted or what?’
Frances Gray frowned, didn’t answer.
‘He was informing on these guys because the police had him on something and he was making a deal to get off of a charge?’
‘No, not according to the file we have. According to the file we have on this case it appears that he came forward voluntarily.’
‘And he died how exactly?’
‘You know he was shot?’
‘Sure, I know he was shot, but who shot him?’
Frances Gray shook her head. ‘That we don’t know. Not exactly. We know that it was one of the men inside the warehouse that was raided—’
‘He was on a warehouse raid? You’re shittin’ me! What the hell were the police doing taking some junkie informant on a warehouse raid?’
Frances Gray shook her head. ‘I am not familiar with all the specifics,’ she said. ‘All I know is that there was a police officer contact of Darryl’s who was also shot. He retired from the department, but I understand that Darryl worked with him for some time before this warehouse raid . . . I don’t know precisely and exactly what occurred. I only have a very few details regarding the actual case itself, you understand? I’d like to be able to answer all your questions, Natasha, but I’m not in a position to do so . . . not because I don’t want to, and not because the police department would have a problem with this, but because the records no longer exist—’
‘What?’
‘There was a flooding incident at the previous records facility. This was two or three years ago, and a great deal of the files that existed were damaged beyond repair. The paperwork just doesn’t exist any more, Natasha, and so I can only tell you what we know from the brief notes made by the officer after he was released from hospital.’
‘And who was that? This officer . . . who was that?’
&nb
sp; ‘His name?’ Frances Gray asked.
‘Sure his name . . . what was his name?’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t give you that information. I can’t identify a police officer—’
‘You just said he was retired, right? If he’s retired then he ain’t a police officer no more.’
Frances Gray smiled patiently. ‘I’m sorry . . . there’s still a degree of confidentiality attached to these matters. The people that were arrested and jailed are still in jail, you see—’
‘Ah Jesus Christ, we had this the first time round. Nobody ever wants to answer a question in a straight fucking line. What the hell d’you think I’m gonna do, huh? I told you why I wanted to know what had happened. My daughter was four years old when her father was killed. All we were ever told was that he was shot. I never even identified his body. His mother went down and did that, you know? Saw her own son lying there with a bullethole in his chest. Only child she had. Lost her husband years before . . . saw her son killed as a junkie, right? You know what happened to her? I’ll tell you what happened to her . . . she died of a broken heart, old woman like that. She just gave up the will to live. Dead within six months. Now there’s just me. Me and Darryl’s daughter. And we want to know what happened, and when I ask you a simple question—’
‘Enough,’ Frances Gray said. Her voice cut Natasha dead. ‘You don’t seem to understand the position we are in—’
‘The position you are in? Don’t give me that bullshit, Ms Gray. Jesus, the position you are in. What the fuck kind of position do you think Darryl King’s mother was in? I’ll fucking tell you something right here and now. You think how that woman might have felt if you’d told her her son was assisting the police in cleaning up some drug areas of Washington. You wonder how she might have felt about her son being dead if she’d been told that?’
‘Miss Joyce . . . seriously, I’m trying to appreciate your situation here. I’m trying to be as helpful as I can, and right now your attitude and manner isn’t helping any.’
‘Lord, you should listen to yourself, girl. I’m the one who came down here ’cause you people never called me back. You came down and got me from the desk . . . you wanted to talk to me, you wanted to help me understand what happened, and I ask you for one thing—’
‘Which I do not have the authority to tell you,’ Frances Gray stated flatly.
‘So what the fuck do we do now then? We wait for someone to come down here who does have the authority? That what we gonna do?’
Frances Gray smiled, but there was something ingratiating and insincere about it. ‘We’re going to conclude this interview, Miss Joyce, and I’m going to make some enquiries as to whether this information can be made available to you. That’s what I’m going to do.’
‘And I’m never gonna hear another word from you people, right? That’s the way it’s gonna go. Tell me I’m wrong.’
Frances Gray shook her head. She gathered up her file, her paper, her pen; she stood up, straightened her jacket and started toward the door. Once in the corridor she waited patiently until Natasha followed her out.
‘I’ll walk you back to the desk,’ Frances Gray said coldly, and already, even as she was being shown down to reception, Natasha Joyce was cursing her hot head, cursing her impatience, her flick-knife temper.
Attitude. That’s what Darryl used to say. There’s attitude, girl, and attitude is the same wherever, but sometimes attitude is gonna help you and sometimes it’s gonna get you all of nothing.
Frances Gray told Natasha Joyce she’d be in touch as soon as she could. She wished her a good day, turned on her heel and click-clacked away across the marble floor into echoes and then silence.
The man at the reception desk smiled. ‘Hope we were helpful,’ he said pleasantly.
Natasha smiled awkwardly. ‘Very,’ she said, her tone almost apologetic, and then she hurried out of the building into the late morning rainfall that had started in her absence.
Richard Helms, acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in an address to the National Press Club, once said, ‘You’ve just got to trust us. We are honorable men.’
Captain George Hunter White, reminiscing about his CIA service, said, ‘I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun. Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steal, rape and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the all-highest?’
These were some of the things from The After . . .
After the thing with my mother, and what my father did, and how he engineered my assistance . . .
Before that:
Patience personified. Standing there at the workbench, a tin canister of wax to my right, a line of wooden veneer strips to my left. One at a time. Smooth as glass. Smooth as jewellers’ rouge and mercury.
‘They are thin,’ my father said. ‘Bend them and they will snap like crackers. Take care to polish them until you can see your face reflected.’
‘What are they for?’ I asked again.
Smiled, shook his head. ‘See that board over there?’ He pointed with his dye-stained finger. ‘That board has to be cut and shaped. When it’s sanded smooth I’m going to draw a pattern in it, and then I’ll cut indents and depressions in the pattern, and then the pieces of veneer you’re polishing will fit together to form a design.’
‘Inlay,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘Right. Inlay.’
‘What’s the board for?’
‘What’s it for?’ he echoed. ‘What’s anything for? It’s for its own purpose, you know? Everything has a purpose, and when you understand that purpose—’
‘Seriously . . . what’s it for?’ I asked again.
He reached out and gripped my shoulder. ‘I’ll tell you when we’re done.’
I watched him working. He didn’t say a word.
Later, looking back, I was reminded of Catherine in some strange way.
Even in her silences she had more to say than anyone I’d ever known.
And again, from The After:
We realized that Reagan was a cocksucker.
Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Government, Administrative Head of the Executive Department, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Supposed to be answerable to no-one.
Three divisions of the United States government - Legislative, Executive and Judicial. Forget the Legislative - nothing but lawyers and penpushers, bureaucrats, faceless minions. Judicial covers the Supreme Court, has authority over all U.S. courts, deals with ‘interpretation of the Constitution’ whatever the fuck that means, but even there we’re talking about the chief justice and eight associate justices, and they’re appointed by whom? That’s right, friends, the almighty cocksucker himself.
So we come to the Executive, and man, if this isn’t a beast of the most extraordinary dimensions. State, Treasury, Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Departments of the Interior, the Office of the White House, the National Security Council . . .
It goes on and on and on.
And the Central Intelligence Agency, in and of itself a magnificent oxymoron - we find these guys right there at the very top of the executive branch. Who are they? Let’s be honest with one another. They are the intelligence and covert operations and covert execution and wetworks and disestablishment and assassination and coup d’état and undermining whatever the fuck is out there that in any way opposes ‘The Great American Way of Life’ unit of the President of the United States. A personal fucking army. The dog soldiers.
Some of the people in the Central Intelligence Agency were good people.
But they were not good for long.
It’s a fallacy. You cannot have a corrupt and self-serving organization populated by people who are there for the very best reasons. People wind up in the CIA, and they either get with the program, or they understand what the program is and get the fuck out of there as fast as they can. And sometimes, as we all know, they are taken out by force, the real definition of ‘extraordinary
rendition’.
And then you have people like me.
Started way back when, after the thing with my mom and dad. Way back when I was a kid and I didn’t know what the goddamn hell I was going to do with my life.
They saw something, the shepherds. That’s what they call them. The guys that go out and gather up the new flock for recruitment and indoctrination and training and all the things you go through, all the steps that whittle down the many into the few. The shepherds.
So they saw something in me. The loner. The loser. The one who didn’t fit. They were good. Man, were they good. Subtle, smart, insidious. Working on me. Finding my loyalties, my interests, the things I believed in, the things I didn’t. They ingratiated themselves into the very fabric of the university campus. They’d been there for ever. Lawrence Matthews. Professor of Philosophy, Virginia State University in Richmond. I’d been there little more than a year. My parents had been dead no more than eight or ten weeks. Changed my major. Caused a noise. Lawrence Matthews was patient, understanding, a good man. He understood that engineering had been my father’s choice, that math and physics and whatever was just not where I lived. English and Philosophy. That’s where I belonged, and after my father’s death that’s where I went.
Professor Lawrence Matthews was there to receive me, and receive me he did. Long discussions. Politics. Life. Death. The Hereafter. God as an icon, God as an identity. All so much horseshit and nonsense. Lawrence Matthews loved that shit. Man, he could talk you round in circles and make you disappear up your own ass. That was his business. Think they trained him as an interrogator, and when he burned out or got a conscience they posted him right there in Virginia State to keep an eye out for the future of the Company. He was a reader. He read people, and when he read something that made sense he would tell the shepherd. The shepherd would come, and he was a friend of Professor Matthews. And Professor Matthews’ friend was a good guy, a regular guy, and he could drink a beer and watch co-eds swing by and smoke cigarettes with the best of them.