A Simple Act of Violence Read Online Free PDF Page B

but nevertheless the sound still came out of left field like something unexpected.
    ‘Mom?’ Chloe said, getting up from the rug, turning and walking toward her. ‘Mom . . . what happened?’
    Natasha Joyce stood motionless, surprise evident on her face, and it was all she could do to hold back her tears.

THREE
    Ten minutes later Miller stood by the window in a third-floor office. Neutral-colored split-level paint job, beige topped by lighter beige. Beat-to-shit furniture. Radiators that groaned and creaked in some vague attempt to get warm, emitting a smell of rust and stagnant water. To Miller’s right and down through the window he could see the corner of New York and Fifth. Behind him on the desk was a copy of the Washington Post. From where he stood he could read the banner headline reflected in the glass. He felt cold and quiet inside.

Fourth Victim of Suspected Serial Murderer
    There was a history behind such a statement. The French named it the monstre sacré : that thing we created that we wished we had not.
    Washington possessed its own variation. They named him the Ribbon Killer. His story preceded the death of Catherine Sheridan by eight months and three other killings. The ribbon he’d left behind had not been the same in these previous cases. The first was blue, the second pink, the third yellow. Pale baby blue, cotton candy pink, spring sunshine yellow. In each case a blank manila luggage tag, much the same as tags tied to the toes of corpses in the morgue, had been attached to those ribbons. Catherine Sheridan’s ribbon was white, she was the fourth victim, and Washington’s Second Precinct under Captain Frank Lassiter had taken the news of her killing like a head-shot. The ribbon and tag was a small fact, the signature perhaps, and had the Homicide detectives assigned to the first murder foreseen a series they would have withheld that detail. The first was a thirty-seven-year-old city librarian named Margaret Mosley, beaten and choked to death, her body discovered in her own apartment on Monday, March 6th. The second did not occur until Wednesday, July 19th. Her name was Ann Rayner, forty years old, a legal secretary with Youngman, Baxter and Harrison, once again found beaten and choked to death in the basement of her house. The third was Barbara Lee, a twenty-nine-year-old florist; pale birthmark beneath her left ear, hailed originally from Baltimore. Same MO. Found on Wednesday, August 2nd, in her house on Morgan and Jersey. And then there was Catherine Sheridan.
    The women were neither abducted nor tortured it seemed. There were no signs of sexual abuse or rape. Nothing appeared to have been taken from the properties, and thus robbery was also eliminated as a motive. From all indications, all four were home when the intruder entered the premises, perhaps held them at gunpoint, spoke to them, told them what he wanted . . . for there were no signs of a struggle, no broken furniture. Each of them was beaten, and the beating was swift, relentless, unabated. The beatings were confident, nothing restrained about them. And then, after the killer had strangled them, he tied a ribbon and a blank name tag around their necks - blue, pink, yellow - and now one in white. The police had let slip the detail; the media had run with the detail; the populace of Washington took the detail and made it their own. Ribbon Killer.
    Miller had read books, seen movies. It was simple in fiction. Four women were dead, and a man - a criminalist, perhaps a man with personal flaws and a difficult reputation - would look into the circumstances of these deaths and find the common connection. There would be something unique and special, and he would shine the light on this unique and special thing and say ‘See? Here we are. Here is the thing that will tell us who he is.’ And he would be right, and they would find the perpetrator, and the denouement would make it all as clear as daylight.
    Not so in life. With the initial case,