Free A Simple Act of Violence by R.J. Ellory

and for no other reason it made sense to understand. Why? Because then she might be able to tell Chloe the truth. When Chloe was old enough to understand, she might be able to look her in the eye and tell her that her father wasn’t a complete waste of life. That he was somebody. That he did at least one good thing. Maybe these people had been good people. Maybe they’d been trying to help Darryl. Or maybe he’d been helping them. Maybe he was even trying to get out of the life and these people had been doing something that could make it happen.
    Or maybe it was all shit.
    Maybe they were nothing but smart-suit bigshot smack dealers from Capitol Hill come down to slum it with the niggers. And then the woman had gotten herself killed. This Catherine Sheridan. And if it was the same woman who’d come looking for Darryl, then maybe the guy that came with her had murdered her. Maybe they’d argued about some deal and he’d beaten the shit out of her and choked her. Maybe he’d murdered the other three first, or he’d murdered her like the first three to make everyone think it was this Ribbon Killer . . .
    That would have been a smart move, Natasha thought.
    She knew she would have to call the cops, have to tell them who she was and where she lived, that the dead woman in the newspaper had come to see Darryl King five years before, that there might be a connection . . .
    Have to tell them that Darryl King went missing and wound up dead, and even now she still did not know what happened.
    Natasha took the newspaper. She tore the front page off and dropped it in the sink. She took a lighter and set it on fire, watched it curl up into a black fall-leaf.
    It burned from the edges inward - slowly, patiently, the smell of smoke bitter in her nostrils.
    Last thing to go was the woman’s face, and the last part of her face was the cold and lifeless eyes, eyes that looked back at Natasha Joyce as if Natasha was somehow responsible for her death.

SIX
    Robert Miller and Al Roth stood in a pizza parlor near the junction of M Street and Eleventh. Miller believed that Roth’s time would have been better spent recovering all files and reports from the previous three murders, but house calls and interviews always had to be conducted by two detectives. A corroborative system had to be established and maintained regardless.
    The manager was young, no more than twenty-three or four. Pleasant face, honest-looking, fair hair cut neat. ‘Hey,’ he said, and smiled.
    ‘You’re Sam?’ Miller asked.
    ‘Yeah, I’m Sam.’ He looked at each of them in turn. ‘You called earlier, yes?’
    Miller showed his badge. ‘An order was made yesterday evening, somewhere around five forty-five, delivered to a house on Columbia around six.’
    ‘The dead woman, I know. I don’t know what to tell you. Delivery guy . . . Jesus, I don’t even know how you’d deal with something like that.’
    ‘You took the order yourself?’ Miller asked.
    ‘I did.’
    ‘And how did she sound to you?’
    Sam frowned, shook his head. ‘She? No, it wasn’t a woman who placed the order. It was a man.’
    Miller looked at Roth. ‘A man?’
    ‘Yes, definitely a man. No question about it. I took the details - stuffed crust, extra monterey jack, double mushroom, you know? I’m writing down the order. I ask the guy for his number, he gives me the number. I ask his name, he says “Catherine”. I say “What?” He laughs. He says “That’s who the pizza’s for. Catherine”. I say “Okay, for Catherine”. I read him back the order. He then repeats it back to me real slow. Made the conversation stick in my head, you know?’
    ‘Like he wanted you to remember the conversation?’
    ‘That’s what I’m thinking now. He wanted me to remember him.’
    Miller looked at Roth. Everything that needed to be said was right there in Roth’s expression. Catherine Sheridan’s killer had called and ordered pizza. He had wanted her to be found immediately.
    ‘How did