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

he sound?’ Miller asked Sam.
    ‘Sounded like Washington, you know? Nothing special. Just sounded like a regular guy. Maybe if I’d known I was gonna be asked about him I would have paid more attention.’
    ‘It’s okay, you did good. You kept the number he gave you?’
    ‘It’s on the order slip.’
    ‘You have that?’
    Sam shuffled through things behind the counter, looked in two places, came back with a yellow paper the size of a playing card. ‘Here,’ he said, and handed it to Miller.
    ‘Can I keep this?’
    ‘Sure you can.’
    Miller took the slip, glanced at it. ‘Three-one-five area code,’ he said. ‘We have a three-one-five area code in Washington? ’
    Sam shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure. Tell you the truth I didn’t even think about it when I wrote the number down. Saturday we’re so busy—’
    ‘It’s fine,’ Miller said. ‘We’ll check it out.’ He handed Sam one of his cards. ‘You think of anything else—’
    ‘Then I’ll call you,’ Sam interjected, smiling again like he was glad to be helpful.
    ‘Thanks,’ Miller said, and shook Sam’s hand.
    ‘No problem.’
    Miller reached the door and paused. ‘One other question. About payment. Don’t you take card details over the phone?’
    ‘Sure, sometimes we do, but most of the deliveries are cash.’
    ‘And this was a cash order?’
    ‘Sure yes. It was just a regular order. Only thing about it was when he gave the woman’s name. Apart from that it was no different from any other call.’
    ‘Okay,’ Miller said. ‘Thanks for your time.’ He held up the yellow order slip. ‘And for this.’
    Neither Miller nor Roth spoke during the brief walk back to the car.
    Miller felt a quiet sense of certainty that anything resembling a normal life would now cease for the foreseeable future. Cease until they had someone, and only begin again if that someone was the someone. Always the way these things went.
    Once they were in the car, he looked at the number printed across the top of the order slip. ‘I really don’t think this is a Washington area code,’ he said. ‘I think this is something else.’
    ‘Question I have is who the fuck orders pizza for a dead woman?’ Roth asked.
    ‘He wanted her found,’ Miller replied matter-of-factly. ‘He wanted everyone to know what he’d done. Previous three were found almost by accident, by chance, something usual. This one? This one’s different.’
    He shook his head. Almost everything had been the same - the lack of forced entry, the beating, the ribbon and tag, even the smell of lavender. Everything the same, except Catherine Sheridan’s face had been left unmarked, and now this. Killarney would have said that the killer had reached his embellishment phase. Modifications, minor changes, knowing that with each aspect of his work he would garner further attention.
    ‘This is what he wants,’ Miller said quietly. ‘He wants people to see what he has done.’
     
    At the precinct Miller tried the number. He got nothing but a continuous tone. He taped the small yellow slip on the wall beside his desk. He did not want to forget it amidst the madness of paperwork he knew was coming. He and Roth then made the necessary requests to have files relating to Mosley, Rayner and Lee brought to the Second. Miller spoke with Lassiter, asked for whatever help he could get putting the records into some sense of order. Lassiter gave him Metz and Oliver and a couple of uniforms from admin. By two o’clock there were six of them crowded into the second-floor office.
    ‘I need phone records,’ Miller said. ‘Landline and cell phone. I want bank records, any computers and laptops from the respective houses. I need employment histories, details of club memberships, libraries, gyms, trade associations, magazines they subscribed to, anything like that. We need to look at this like a fingertip search, go back inch-by-inch through everything . . . see if there’s any common denominator,