A Simple Act of Violence Read Online Free PDF Page A

around corpses and pick stuff off of them.’ Lassiter shook his head. ‘To hell with it. This isn’t a conversation we’re having right now.’ He got up from his chair and walked to the window. ‘I’m pissed with the pair of you by the way,’ he said. ‘For leaving last night. I read your report. How long were you out there? Half an hour?’
    ‘Forensics,’ Miller replied. ‘It was a new crime scene, we were just in the way. We started round the adjacent houses but no-one had anything important to say.’ He paused for a moment. ‘And no, we were not out there for half an hour, we were out there nearly three hours.’
    ‘Three houses, Robert. Three fucking houses? Give me a break. Only thing that pisses me off is a lack of professionalism. Can tolerate all the moaning and whining about the hours, the low pay, the overtime, the fact that no-one ever gets to see their wives and kids and cats and dogs and mistresses, but when it comes to a lack of care—’
    ‘Understood,’ Miller interjected.
    ‘You heard that speech before too, right?’ Lassiter said.
    ‘I did, yes,’ Miller said. ‘Couple of times.’
    ‘So what the fuck are you gonna do? You’re gonna quit? Or you gonna put in for a transfer?’
    ‘I don’t know. I figured I’d look at it at the end of the month, maybe after Christmas.’
    ‘So I need you to do this one.’
    Miller said nothing.
    ‘Chief wants the whole case transferred here. All four killings. Right now we have nothing that tells us it’s the same perp. From your report it appears that they could be, but apparencies I don’t need and can’t use. The strangulation, the beating, the ribbon with the name tag thing, all that stuff. Seems to be the same MO, right?’
    ‘It does, yes.’
    ‘What was the name of the first one . . . Mosley?’
    ‘Yes, Margaret Mosley, back in March.’
    ‘Was that your case?’
    ‘No, not really. I was the first one out there, simply because I was on shift,’ Miller explained. ‘I think Metz took it in the end.’
    ‘No . . . I remember what happened now. Metz was going to take it and didn’t. It wound up being handled by the Third.’
    ‘This thing is all over the place isn’t it?’
    Lassiter smiled wryly. ‘You have no fucking idea.’
    ‘So why us? Why the Second?’
    Lassiter shrugged. ‘First one was in our precinct, second in the Fourth, third one in the Sixth, now this fourth one is back in the Second. We have two of them. The chief loves us, hates us maybe. Jesus, I don’t know. He wants us to handle it, be the central point for all four investigations. It’s become an issue. He needs it dealt with as one case. Makes sense. To date it’s been dealt with - not dealt with actually - by three different precincts. Newspapers have gone crazy for it, as we all knew they would, and maybe he thinks that after all the crap that you stirred up we can repair our reputation by making this mess go away.’
    ‘This is such horseshit—’
    Lassiter raised his hand. ‘Politics and protocol is what it is, nothing more nor less than that. It feels personal, but it isn’t.’
    ‘And did the chief suggest I do this because of what happened?’
    ‘Not exactly . . .’
    ‘Meaning?’
    Lassiter walked from the window and sat down again. ‘Thing you have to understand here is that there’s always going to be some social-conscience bullshit liberal that assumes we do nothing but kick the crap out of innocent civilians for fun.’
    Miller smiled sarcastically. ‘I know about police department politics. I don’t need a lesson—’
    ‘Fine, so I don’t need to explain myself. If you’re here then you’re on duty. If you’re on duty then you have an obligation to accept the cases I assign to you. I’m assigning this thing to you, and short of handing in your resignation right here and now there’s very fucking little that you can do about it.’
    ‘Love you too, captain,’ Miller said.
    ‘So go and talk to the FBI.’
    Miller