A Simple Act of Violence by R.J. Ellory Read Free Book Online Page B

passport and digitally-enhanced to improve the contrast and color as Reid had suggested, had been reproduced in a postcard format. Miller had stared at the image, tried to see the woman. There was something about her features, something individual and striking, but he could not determine what it was. She looked as if she had lived with as much drama as had characterized the nature of her death.
    The previous day, Saturday the 11th, had been Veterans Day. Unusually chill, for sunshine varied little in Washington, and November temperatures rarely dropped below the high forties. A small thermometer on the veranda of the Sheridan house would have given the temperature as thirty-five Fahrenheit. Being Veterans Day, processions and remembrance marches would have been the focus of attention for the majority of Washingtonians; Arlington Cemetery, children dwarfed by the stainless steel statues representing America’s loss in Korea. A day of remembrance, of mourning, of the World War II Memorial inscription: ‘Today the guns are silent . . . The skies no longer rain death - the seas bear only commerce - men everywhere walk upright in the sunlight. The entire world is quietly at peace.’ There would have been the sound of brass bands in the distance, Sousa marches challenging the hum and rumble of the city’s morning traffic. Respectful people, glancing back toward the sound as they remembered what Veterans Day meant to so many. A father lost, perhaps a son, a brother, a neighbor, a childhood sweetheart. People who stopped for a moment, closed their eyes, breathed deeply, nodded as if in prayer, and then moved along the sidewalk. Memories were left hanging in the crisp atmosphere, and as people passed by it was as if they could feel the sorrow, the nostalgia, the haunt of warmth as they walked right through them. For a single day Washington had become a city of memories, a city of forgetting.
    ‘Library after the house,’ Miller said as he and Roth pulled away from the sidewalk and drove toward Columbia. ‘That’s if the library is actually open today.’
    Roth didn’t reply, merely nodded.
    Greg Reid was in Catherine Sheridan’s kitchen when Roth and Miller arrived. He smiled, raised his hand in acknowledgement. In daylight he looked like William Hurt, his features receptive to life, to others, perhaps a man who gave more than he took. ‘So you’re on this job then?’ he asked.
    ‘We are,’ Miller said. ‘How’s it looking?’
    ‘I sent her away to the morgue,’ Reid said. ‘Did my preliminaries, took prints, pictures, all the usual. Have a few things for you.’ He nodded toward the kitchen table. ‘You’ve got the library card, right? There’s also some food from a deli in the kitchen, some bread, butter, stuff like that. It’s organic bread, you know? French. No preservatives. Date-stamped yesterday.’
    ‘Which deli?’ Roth asked.
    ‘Address is on the wrapper,’ Reid said.
    Miller took his notepad from his pocket. ‘Any messages on the answerphone?’
    Reid shook his head. ‘No answerphone.’
    ‘Computer?’
    Reid shook his head. ‘No desktop, no laptop that I could find.’ He smiled awkwardly.
    ‘What?’ Miller asked.
    ‘Never seen anything like this place,’ Reid said.
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘This house.’
    ‘How d’you mean?’ Miller asked.
    ‘Take a look around. It’s very clean, almost too clean.’
    ‘Perp more than likely cleaned everything,’ Roth said. ‘They have this shit down cold now. God bless CSI, right?’
    Reid shook his head. ‘I don’t mean that kind of clean. I mean it’s like no-one really lived here. Like a hotel, you know? There’s none of the usual kind of mess you get with normal people. Washing basket in the bathroom is empty. There’s combs and cosmetics, toothpaste, all that kind of thing, but it seems like there’s too little of it.’
    ‘Did you cover any of the previous crime scenes?’ Miller asked.
    ‘I did the one in July over on