Nick was still rolling Margaria Cotton's words around in his head when he got back to the office. While he'd been dropping her off in front of the Broward Sheriff's Office, Detective Hargrave and his partner, the big sergeant, had been just getting out of their unmarked Crown Vic. Detectives being what they are, Nick knew they'd check out the driver who was bringing Cotton to see them. Even the stone-faced Hargrave could not cover the look of consternation on his face. The big man had turned around just as they were entering a side door for employees and officers only and given him a sorry shake of his head.
Now, as Nick was making his way to his desk, a sports editor grinned at him and said, "Hi, Nick. How you doing?"
The greeting snapped his concentration at first, and then piled onto Cotton's observation.
"Hey, Stevie. Alright," Nick answered.
Few people in the place bothered to talk to him these days. The sports guy, Steve Bryant, had told him it was because they didn't know what to say after Nick returned to work following the accident. The first few weeks, there were the quiet condolences. He'd nodded, thanked them. But he'd never been a gregarious sort. He'd have an occasional beer with the other reporters after a late shift, would toss a good-natured barb across the desk like the one he'd received from Hirschman about the roof photo. But Steve had confided that if Nick was already intimidating with his intensity before the tragedy, he was downright scary when he'd returned.
Loss of compassion? Like Ms. Cotton had said? A scene from an old movie flashed into Nick's head. A hard-core mercenary is told during a firefight that he's bleeding. The guy's rebuttal: I ain't got time to bleed.
When he got to his desk there was a press release lying in the middle, a one-sheet write-up that had been faxed by the Sheriff's Office as it had been to every news organization in three counties. Cameron had given everyone all the updated information that Nick had already put in his story for this morning's edition, including the caliber of the bullet. While his computer was coming up, Nick answered the blinking light on his phone. Three of four messages were from readers who wanted him to know how glad they were that Ferris had been shot, saving them the cost of another trial "for that animal." None left a name. The fourth call was from Cameron. There was a distinct edge in his voice:
"Nick. Nice job this morning doing an interview of a witness before the detectives could even get to her. Man, you're gumming this one up, pal."
Cameron paused, maybe for effect, maybe because he didn't want to say what he had to say next.
"Detective Hargrave wants to see you himself this afternoon about four. I'll assume you'll be here. Believe me, Nick, it might be a once-in-a-lifetime offer. But I'm going to have to be in the room with you, so ease up, eh?"
Nick replayed the message, twice, and then sat back, thinking it through. Hargrave, the wordless one, the man who always turned his back on the media, wanted a sitdown. Did he think Nick had gotten something from Cotton he hadn't? Maybe he thought she knew the people who had worn the pictures of Cotton's girls during the trial. That would sure as hell be one of Nick's moves if he was looking for someone with motive. There had been news coverage of the trial. Nick would have to call Matt over at Channel 10 to see if their film was being subpoenaed. But most of those video shots would have been of the front of the courtroom, not of the gallery. Hargrave also would have known from Cameron that Nick hadn't covered the trial. He looked up over the cubicles to see if the court reporter was still at her desk. She might have quoted some of the people who'd worn the buttons and had some names and contact numbers. He looked at his watch. It was two o'clock. If the meeting with Hargrave took a while, he'd be pushing deadline later in the day. To be safe he opened up a new screen on his computer and started typing a rough draft of tomorrow's follow-up story, which at this point wouldn't be much different factually from today's, other than planting a quote or two from Ms. Cotton. He could always hope that Hargrave would let loose with something, but he wasn't planning on it.
It took him an hour to bang out 350 decent words that could pass for a Saturday story on its own if it had to. At this point, he'd have to lead with the only fresh thing he had, which was that police were talking with the mother of the slain children in connection with Ferris's killing and the investigation was continuing. Nick knew it was bullshit. The investigation was always continuing and most people with half a brain would know that the cops would talk with the girls' mom. But he also knew that if you phrased it just right, the general reading public would skim it, figure it was close enough to news and give themselves something to gab about at dinner with their friends on Saturday night:
"How 'bout that shooting downtown? The pedophile guy?"
"Yeah, I saw they were talking to the mom of the girls he killed."
"Like she wouldn't have a big smile on her face, eh?"
"Can you believe they were gonna let the guy off?"
"The system is all fucked up, you know?"
"I'd of hired somebody to kill him if I was her."
"Yeah?"
"Damn straight."
When Nick was finished with the draft, he stored it away and turned off the computer. He'd have enough time to stop at the cafe downstairs and grab a cup of coffee and maybe one of those plastic-wrapped sandwiches and he could eat on the way over to the Sheriff's Office. He hadn't bothered to look at the rest of the research files that Lori had sent. Later, if he got back early, he thought. Right now he was already getting cranked up for Hargrave. What the hell was the guy going to say? Just chew him out? Hell, he could take that without a sweat. He hadn't put anything unethical in the story today, and sure as hell nothing that was going to stink up the investigation. The dead man's name and the caliber of the bullet? The killer knew the name would come out and the bullet caliber was only good in dismissing some of the nut jobs who would call the cops claiming they'd done the shooting. Oh, yeah? What'd you do him with? A nine-millimeter, you say? Good-bye. Don't call back again.
No, whatever Hargrave had in mind would be something more than the simple stuff, Nick thought, trying to prepare. But hell with it, he finally whispered to himself, better not to speculate, just let it fall the way it was going to fall. Nick walked through the front doors of the sheriff's administration building at 3:50 PM. As soon as the wash of air-conditioning swept over him he was taking the car keys out of his pocket, fishing the cell phone off his belt, checking to see if he had a pack of gum in his shirt, the foil of which would set off the metal detectors. While he stood in line waiting for his turn to pass through the security screen, he looked up into the huge ornate rotunda. The building had been constructed a few years ago to replace what had been little more than a retrofitted warehouse south of the city. The entryway soared up several floors to an atrium roof that let in the signature sunshine of South Florida. Nick thought it far too ostentatious for a cop shop. But what the hell. Your tax dollars at work.
The deputy on the other side of the electronic gateway nodded as Nick passed through without a beep.
"Where are you visiting today, sir?"
"Media relations," Nick said and tipped his head to the left where the doors to Joel Cameron's department were located. He watched for a change in the young officer's face. Did it change when he was told the press was in the house? But the kid just nodded and was already on to the next person passing through the hoops of post-9/11 decorum. Nick gathered his stuff from a plastic bowl and moved on.
The receptionist just inside Cameron's office recognized Nick immediately, smiled, asked how he was doing.
"Fine, how are you?" Nick didn't come here often. Most of his work was done out in the streets or by phone. If he was meeting an inside source, it was usually done at a designated lunch spot, Houston's on Federal Highway, Hot Dog Heaven on Sunrise. Nick stole a look down the hall into the office. It had the same setup as the newsroom, a smaller version, but the same fabric-covered separators that made you think you had a space of your own. Cameron was at the end of the created hallway, heading his way.
"Thanks for being on time, Nick," Cameron said, moving briskly, not offering a hand or a greeting. He was carrying a legal pad and checking his shirt pocket for a pen. Nick noted that the pad was brand-new, nothing yet on the top page.
"The detectives want us to meet them upstairs in a conference room," Cameron said, opening the door to the lobby and holding it for Nick. "We'll have to get you a pass."
Nick shrugged at Cameron's iciness. The media officer had already told Nick that Hargrave was a hard-ass who never talked to the press, or even Cameron, for that matter. Now he'd been told to bring a seasoned police reporter in for a private meet. Nick knew Joel would not only be nervous about what might be said, but also pissed if he had to explain to the rest of the media types who would be howling if word got out of such an exclusive.
While Nick was passing his driver's license and newspaper I.D. through the bulletproof glass at the admittance office, he said, "So, you gonna give me a clue here as to what's going on, Joel?"
"I can't say that I even have a clue," Cameron said, still not looking Nick in the eye. "If Hargrave wanted to leak something to you, Nick, he should've just called you on the phone like the rest of your sources do."
Yeah, Nick thought, Cameron's pissed.
When the officers inside the security fishbowl passed a temporary I.D. back at Nick, he clipped the badge onto his shirt pocket, listened for the electronic click of the lock on the adjoining door and then followed Cameron into the main offices. They immediately took a right and got onto an escalator rolling up to the second floor. When did they start putting escalators into police headquarters? Nick thought as they rose. The world, my man, has changed.
At the end of a hallway that Nick knew led to the executive offices, Cameron stopped and hesitated at a door just shy of the double entrance to the sheriff's own suite. He carefully knocked twice and then entered, again holding open the door so that Nick would have to walk through first. Nick quickly recognized the room as the conference area where he had once conducted an interview with the sheriff during an election year. Nick had always hated politics, but, as the senior police reporter, it was in his job description to cover the sheriff's race. The only redeeming aspect was that the assignment only had to be done once every four years.
The room was dominated by a long, polished maple conference table and at the other end sat Hargrave and a sheriff's lieutenant Nick recognized as head of special operations. Against the wall behind them stood a middle-aged man whom Nick judged to be a lawyer by the cut of his suit and tie. He had a file opened in his hands and did not look up as they entered, never a good sign, Nick thought. It was Cameron's job to make introductions.
"Gentlemen," he began, a slight catch in his throat. "Mr. Mullins is here as requested. Mr. Mullins, this is Lieutenant Steve Canfield."
Canfield stood up as Nick worked his way down the length of the table on the side opposite Hargrave and offered his hand.
"I believe we've met," he said, "at one news conference or another."
Nick had had few dealings with Canfield but respected him. He had started as a street cop and rose to be commander of the department's SWAT operations and then implemented the first community policing program as a captain in a rough neighborhood in the northwest section of the county.
"It was actually during a training exercise at the abandoned Margate hospital when you were running SWAT, sir," Nick said, shaking the lieutenant's hand. "Probably four, five years ago when I was putting together a magazine piece."
"Yes, I think you're right," he said and then sat.
Nick detected a movement from the mystery man when he had mentioned the SWAT exercise. The man had slightly lowered his file and Nick caught his eyes peering at him over the top edge of the paperwork.
"And you know Detective Hargrave," Cameron said, "who you met the other day."
Hargrave nodded but did not look up from his hands, which were clasped and resting on the table before him. Nick extended his own hand but, instead of presenting a handshake, turned his palm up to show the indentations that were still visible from its time pressed into the stones on the roof of the diagnostic center.
"Yesterday, in fact," Nick said and then withdrew the hand.
"OK, please," Lieutenant Canfield quickly said. "Fellas, let's sit and talk about some concerns."
As they pulled out chairs, Nick could see Cameron's uneasiness as he cut his eyes from the lieutenant to the man still standing at the wall. Canfield picked up on the mood of the room.
"Guys, this is Agent Fitzgerald, who is an observer from a, uh, federal agency who will be sitting in."
Fitzgerald raised his eyes again and nodded. Hargrave stared at his hands. Cameron said nothing, but scratched something onto the pad he'd now placed on the table.
"OK. We all know why we're here," Canfield began.
No one at the table responded. The statement had perhaps caught them all cynically thinking, No, we don't know why the hell we're here. Why don't you tell us?
"Detective, you've got a homicide case that's still fresh. I know you want to work that with every advantage available, and I know you've got your methods.
"Mr. Mullins, you've got a job to do as a member of the press covering this incident and we all respect that. You've been quick to come up with information that you're presenting to the public, and we respect that too."
Both men nodded their agreement to the obvious and let the silence force Canfield into saying something they didn't already know.
"We would normally let these things run their course," the lieutenant continued. "But Mr. Fitzgerald here is now connected peripherally to the case because his agency has been alerted to all shooting incidents in which a sniper might have been involved.
"They have been using a computer-assisted alert system to red-flag reports nationwide and then dispatching agents to observe and be made aware of any, uh, protocols that might match up and be useful to them."
Protocols? Nick was watching the agent to see if the man was going to make any acknowledgment of the lieutenant's useless bureaucratic jargon.
"Sniper shootings?" Nick suddenly said, again using his big mouth to get at least some kind of reaction, juggle things up a bit and see if anything fell. "You're specifically looking at sniper shootings?" He took out his notebook. Deirdre wanted to use sniper in the story, she was going to get it now.
The mystery man simply looked up over his file and fixed an unreadable, mannequinlike look at Nick's face.
"I'm not at liberty to say."
Nick loved that form of no comment. "Not at liberty." "I cannot confirm nor deny." "Beyond my purview." Everybody's a lawyer these days. But it rarely slowed him down.
"And the reason you're letting me in is that you put this sniper homicide on a fast track, and you wanna know what I know when I know it instead of waiting to read the paper tomorrow?" he said, since no one else was going to explain it.
He looked across the table at Hargrave, who was still studying his interlaced fingers, but Nick noticed the top edges of his sharp cheeks rise slightly as he suppressed a grin.
"OK. Yeah, Nick. It's on a fast track," Canfield jumped in. "And as soon as Mr. Fitzgerald knows all that we know so he can rule out that this particular shooting has any interest for his agency, he'll thank us and get on with the work he's been assigned to."
That's why Nick liked the guy. Even if he knew Mr. Federal Agency was drilling into the back of his head with his stone-cold eyes, Canfield was going to just lay it out on the table in plain English.
"So you're officially looking for a sniper, not a drive-by, not a random shooting?" Nick said, just to make sure.
"Yeah," Canfield said. "That's official."
Nick was impressed. A sniper and the presence of the feds. This was a new twist on homeland security. He didn't write anything down, he just took a moment to let the admission sink in.
"So the ball's in your court, Nick," Canfield said.
Nick felt Cameron shift in the chair beside him. This was touchy stuff, asking a journalist to divulge information before publication. Nick knew he could easily fall back on the old freedom-of-the-press line and walk away. But he was also too damned intrigued by the exclusivity he would gain by being on the inside. And besides, as far as he knew, he didn't have squat that they wouldn't already have learned.
"OK, Steve," Nick said, using the old first-name trick. "First of all, I can't give up the names of any sources."
"We know that, Nick. We know you've got a dozen guys in the Sheriff's Office that like to talk to you. We know that's where you got Ferris's name and probably the caliber of the bullet. What we need you to tell us is whether you had some sort of early knowledge of the rooftop. We would like to know what Ferris's family might have said to you that you didn't put in the paper. And we'd like to know what Ms. Cotton told you in her interview this morning."
"Geez. Anything else, Steve?" Nick said, talking to the lieutenant but looking at Hargrave.
"Yeah." The detective finally looked up from his hands and asked directly across the table into the reporter's face, "What did the witness from the children's center tell you about a man he saw coming down off the roof before we got there?"
The question caused the federal agent to lower his file to the side of his thigh. Canfield also seemed to move his elbows forward on the table. Nick started to turn toward Cameron, who had obviously reported the encounter to the detectives, but stopped himself.
"You mean the little guy who came into work at eight?" Nick said, already knowing the answer. "The guy said he thought it was one of yours, a SWAT officer," Nick said, turning his eyes to Canfield. "Dressed in black and carrying a bag."
"Did he give you a description of the man?"
The question came from the wall, from Fitzgerald. Nick was surprised by the high, scratchy timbre of the man's voice. He thought all federal agents learned to modulate their voices in training. The man was focused, though, intensely. Nick pictured a flier posted on the bulletin board of the FBI with large black print: SNIPER. If you see this man…
"No. I was trying to work him when Joel came up to give me a message and then the guy, Dennis was his name, got antsy and walked away," Nick said, trying not to indict Cameron. "Why? Isn't that what he gave you guys? I mean, you've interviewed him, right?"
Hargrave looked up at Nick. "Yeah, we talked to him. Same stuff. Said the guy was above-average build, whatever the hell that means, and had a balaclava covering most of his face. He thought he was white, and I emphasize the word thought," the detective said, cutting his eyes over at the fed.
"OK, how about the roof business?" Canfield said.
"Nobody tipped me to that," Nick said. "The photographer I was with noted the blood spatter on the wall next to the steps, lower than the victim's height. I noticed that the cops were looking up and behind us at the crime scene. I just put two and two together."
Hargrave and Canfield glanced at each other. Nick was satisfied that he hadn't used the detective's name as the one whose eyes on the rooftop had given it away.
"OK. The families?"
"I only talked to Ferris's sister-in-law, at her house trailer. She didn't sound like she was terribly crushed by the whole thing, but not exactly relieved either," Nick said. "I got the sense that her husband had been carrying his brother's load for a long time."
"Enough of a burden to want to finish him off?" Hargrave said.
"That wasn't the feel. More like enough to just bury him and try to forget," Nick said, but he was getting tired of the one-way conversation. "Why, did he say something different to you?"
He was talking directly to Hargrave, who hesitated, looked at his lieutenant and then said, "No. We checked him out with his boss and two other workers who put him in the warehouse at the time of the shooting. He isn't a suspect. He didn't say good riddance. He didn't cry. He just asked when he could pick up the body."
Nick jotted something on his reporter's pad. The room went quiet for a moment. The rules were being set.
"Ferris is not a suspect?" Nick said, looking directly into Hargrave's eyes, making sure he was getting the comment straight.
"Not at this time."
Nick knew it was a fallback position, but OK, never say never, he'd give him that.
"OK, Nick. How about Ms. Cotton?" Canfield said, trying to swing the information tide back to his side. "You got to her before we did. What did she tell you?"
"Not much," Nick said, rebuilding the scene in his head. "That she wasn't the kind of person to look for retribution. She's religious but isn't going for that eye-for-an-eye thing."
The heard-that-a-million-times feel in the room was as clear as if all three law enforcement officers had covered their mouths and yawned.
"She said she didn't know anyone who would have done Ferris, and she hadn't had any suspicious visitors or contacts that would lead her to believe anyone would shoot the guy for her."
As he said it, Nick's head jumped to a vision of the box of letters that Ms. Cotton had told him about. He should have looked at them. He should have taken down some names. But should he mention it to this group? Hell, if they'd asked the woman the same questions he had and she told them about the letters, they would probably have the box in the back room already. But just in case he jotted down "go back to Cotton on letters" in his notebook and flipped the page.
"OK, now what are you going to give me?"
Canfield started to say something, then stopped.
Nick looked over at the press officer. "You know," he said. "The reason I came in here, agreed to this trade of information?"
Cameron cut his eyes the other way. Not my call, he was saying. I'm just taking orders.
"Well, you've already got the brother declared a nonsuspect. That isn't out yet," Canfield finally spoke up.
"At this time," Hargrave said off to the side.
Nick went from face to face. All eyes were down. They always knew more than they told you. Always.
"How about ballistics?" he said, trying to pry something loose.
"You've already got that, Nick. It was a.308. Actually, a Federal Match loaded with the 168-grain Boat Tail Hollow Point," Canfield said.
Nick jotted down the name. He didn't know shit about bullets. But that didn't matter much to his readers.
"Federal Match?" he said, cutting his eyes to the agent, who was still standing. "Does that mean it only comes from the military?"
The agent's eyes lifted and Nick detected a muscle twitch in the guy's jaw as it tightened. OK. If you were a poker player, that was a tell. Did mention of the military trip the guy?
"No, not at all," Canfield said quickly. "It's a round that's on the civilian and law enforcement market. Anyone could buy it."
"Any prints on the casing?" Nick said, working it.
"Never found a casing," Hargrave answered, not looking up until he asked his own question: "Did you?"
Nick let it pass. He knew his reputation would have already been passed to Hargrave. He'd never keep something that vital to a case to himself. It was more than unethical, it would have been stupid. Instead he took the opportunity to nail an attribution for the rooftop site.
"So you're saying the kill shot was taken from the roof?"
Canfield nodded. The creases in Hargrave's brow made it clear he was in pain giving such information to a reporter. Nick let it sit for a moment and then carefully set up his next question, wanting to watch the reaction, see which of the men in the room clenched his teeth the hardest, or breathed deepest, or just got up and walked out.
"So, you're working the angle that it's a military sniper or a law enforcement sniper?"
No one flinched. The fed even controlled his jaw muscle. Everyone was in control, almost like they'd expected the question and rehearsed. Even Nick knew by now that it would be Canfield's job to answer the delicate ones.
"We would be remiss in our duty, Nick, not to pursue all possibilities."
Nick let the standard answer hang in the air for a moment, but couldn't control himself.
"So you guys learned a lesson from the D.C. Beltway, eh?"
This time the federal officer's eyes came up and seared into Nick's. Gotcha, Nick thought.
In the fall of 2002, the Beltway sniper case had scared the hell out of Washington, D.C, and surrounding Virginia when ten innocent people had been killed, shot dead by a cold-blooded sniper from long distances as they were going about their daily lives. One was filling her tank at a gas station. Another was carrying groceries. Another picking up her son at school. In the flurry that built after the second shooting, the rumors and assumptions flew. The speculation, fed by so-called sources from the FBI and both the state and local police departments, was that a disturbed soldier, active or retired, or some rampaging cop was serially wreaking havoc. The shots were too difficult. The skill in striking and then disappearing was too well planned and logistical. The weaponry too sophisticated.
When the killer was finally caught, it turned out to be some teenager firing from the trunk of a car driven by the boy's pissed-off and most likely deranged stepfather. Amateurs. The speculators had been all wrong.
"Like your fellow seers in the media didn't like jumping on that? Like they had some fucking movie playing out," Hargrave mumbled.
"No argument there, Detective," Nick said. "No one's finest hour on that one."
In the following silence, Canfield shoved his chair back, signaling an end to the meeting. Nick flipped his notebook closed. The fed pushed off the wall with one hip, turned without a word and started out the adjoining door.
"OK, Nick. Please keep in touch through Mr. Cameron's office," Canfield said as he stood and offered his hand.
"I will," Nick said, shaking the lieutenant's hand over the table.
Hargrave stood during the formality and met Nick's eyes, his own holding a look devoid of hostility or superiority. The softened lines surprised Nick, and forced his eyebrows to rise in anticipation.
"Check you later," the detective said, a phrase that in one way may have said nothing. But Nick didn't think so. There was a crack in the ice.
"Anytime," he said, taking the man's hand, almost skeletal in its thinness and sharp protrusions of knuckle and bone. But once again he noted the taut cablelike muscles in the detective's forearm. I would not want to be caught in that guy's grip in a dark alley, he thought and carried his own warning out the door. When Nick got back to the newsroom it was almost six PM. It was the busiest part of the day, when reporters had all come back into the house after being out on assignment, when assistant city editors were working line by line to get through each of their charges' daily stories, asking questions, getting clarification, trying to make sure photographs taken during the day were matched up with the right reports and generally busting hump to clear the decks before deadline.
He stopped at the city desk to tell the assistant in charge of the cop shift that he had a story coming as a follow on the jail shooting.
"Yeah, Deirdre said you'd have something," the editor said as he looked through a sheaf of papers that Nick knew was a printout of tomorrow's story budget. Man, that woman was something, he thought, shaking his head, but with a smirk of respect at the corners of his mouth.
"How much space do you think you need?"
Nick knew the question was really eighty percent rhetorical. By this time of day, most of the paper would already have been laid out and story lengths pretty much decided. He also knew the business, this paper in particular, and knew what length would be acceptable and wouldn't put a twist in anyone's shorts.
"Twelve to fifteen inches should be enough," he said.
"Sounds good," the editor said and looked at his watch. "You've got two hours, man. Early deadline because of the breaking stuff coming in late from Miami on the mayor being indicted."
Nick just nodded and moved away. Two hours to compose four or five hundred words. Easy. He might even get home to eat dinner with Carly. That was sometimes the blessing of early deadlines.
"Oh, and Nick," the editor said as he started to walk away. "Call that story VIGILANTE3, and we'll use file art on Ferris again."
Vigilante. Shit, thought Nick. Where did they get that? TV? The Herald's Web page? He hadn't even written the piece and they were jumping to conclusions. Go write the story, Nick told himself. Go home. Keep your mouth shut.
At his desk Nick charged up the computer and ignored the blinking message light on his phone. The top of the story was already in his head and he clicked it off on the keyboard: On the hunt for a sniper with an unknown motive, police yesterday began a widespread, investigation to track down the executioner of convicted child molester and murderer Steven Ferris.
Interviewing members of the Ferris family, the mother of the two children Ferris abused and killed and a witness who may have seen the triggerman Friday morning, sheriff's detectives put their efforts on a fast track to find the marksman who shot Ferris inside the fences of their own jail.
From there Nick rolled through the piece like a simple game of eight ball: quotes from Canfield confirming they were looking for a sniper, all of the statements from Margaria Cotton that Nick thought were relevant, the admission by Hargrave that Ferris's brother was not a suspect. Even if he was being given special access, Nick still wasn't obliged to ease up on his own reporting. He included the quotes from the witness who had seen someone dressed in black and carrying a satchel leaving the roof of the building across the street just moments after the shooting. Even though he knew it would be questioned by the editors, Nick omitted the worker's name. He knew that the guy would freak out if he saw his identity in print and would swamp the paper with complaints that Nick had set him up to be a target of the killer. And who knew if he wouldn't be right? The editors didn't like unnamed sources and Nick would have to explain it, but he figured he was on solid ethical ground.
The other thing he left out was the presence of the federal agent. It wasn't necessarily a favor. Nick still didn't know what agency this Fitzgerald guy was from. And other than following similar shooting reports, he had no idea why the hell the guy was here. The way he'd twitched up when asked about a military sniper made Nick nervous. Were the feds looking for a nutcase off the reservation of a military base? Had someone from the VA with a trigger finger gone wacky? Figuring no other media outlet was even aware of the feds' involvement, Nick decided to work the angle a few days, call a friend at the local FBI office. He might have just put it off as some weapons-tracing program ATF was running, but that wouldn't "fast-track" this specific investigation as Canfield had explained. And he sure as hell wouldn't have prompted the Sheriff's Office into letting a journalist like Nick into the inner circle. Something was humming on a higher level and he put it on his priority list to find out where Fitzgerald had come from.
After maxing out the story at exactly sixteen inches, Nick read it through one more time for spelling of names and attributions, made an electronic copy for himself and with a touch of a button shipped it to his editor. He slid his chair back and looked over at the metro desk to let him know and saw a knot of folks, including his man, an assignment editor and a woman from the photo department having a close conversation. This sort of gathering was always ominous, and ninety-nine percent of the time they'd end their little conclave by looking for someone to do something for them.
Nick pulled his chair back up to his desk and gave full concentration to his keyboard. It was seven thirty. He wanted to go home. He needed to be with Carly. Friday nights had been set aside for movies and popcorn and he'd been mostly true to that. He'd made a lot of those promises after the accident. He'd been guilty of not showing up on Friday nights, working big weekend pieces for the Sunday edition. He'd shortchanged his family. He hadn't been there when they needed him.
When he took a chance and glanced over at the group, the photo editor was shaking her head and walking away. The assignment guy was looking at his watch. And Nick's editor just shrugged his shoulders and headed Nick's way.
"Hey, Nick. How's that piece coming?"
"Pretty close," Nick said. He hated lying. He'd always hated lying.
"Good, man. 'Cause we've got a situation."
Nick pushed his chair back. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. There's a multicar accident out on 1-95 down near the Hollywood Boulevard exit and, you know, traffic is hell and backed up all the way to the Dade County line."
"Injuries?" Nick said, letting a forced passivity mask his face.
"Yeah. But we don't know how serious. We've got a couple of reporters on their way."
Nick had done this dance a couple of times since he'd come back to work, and he felt a twinge of sympathy for the guy. But he was a police reporter. It was still what he did and in his business death was a regular staple of the news cycle.
"Those guys will do the scene, Nick, so we don't need you to go out there, OK?" the editor quickly said, trying to soften it. "But we're going to need you to do rewrite, you know, so we can try to make deadline with it."
"Yeah, sure. OK," Nick said, turning his chair and bellying back up to his keyboard. "Just give 'em my extension. I'll take the feeds." He did not look back at the editor's face and instead focused on the screen in front of him.
"And I'll ship this other piece to you in a minute."
"Thanks, Nick. I mean, you know, thanks."
Nick waved him off and let his fingertips start snapping at the keys. He called up a street schematic of the accident location on MapQuest. He tried to visualize the businesses and major landmarks along that stretch of interstate from memory. But the scenes in his head kept jumping back to December, two years ago. Christmas decorations on the pods around him. Diane Lade with her inevitable miniature tree on top of her computer terminal. An editor's voice: "Nick, we got some kind of wreck up in Deerfield Beach. Somebody T-boned a family van. Sounds like it might be a good story."
His ringing phone snapped him back.
"Hey, Nick. Kevin Davis-I hear you're doing rewrite?"
"Yeah, Kev. You out there yet?"
"Just got here. Man, the traffic is way backed up. It looks like four or five cars from here. The location is about two hundred yards north of the Sterling Road on-ramp in the northbound lanes. I'll call you back when I get up there and see what's what."
Nick hung up and went back to his screen and tried to block out Christmas Eve.
He'd been wishing only that the night would end so he could go home and help lay out presents for his kids. He was looking for the swirl of blue cop lights and red ambulance strobes. He was walking up to the scene smelling the odor of raw gasoline and burnt rubber and recognized a motor patrolman he knew as a friend but was puzzled by the look on the guy's face. He got a glance at the wreckage in the middle of the intersection. Steel twisting in the shine of headlights. Maroon color. Same as his own van.
"Hey, Nick?" The photo editor's voice turned his head as she approached. "We've got this digital stuff that Lou got from the accident scene."
She laid the printed photos on his desk.
"He's sending them in from his laptop so we can make deadline. Thought maybe they'd help if you, like, needed a visual to put the story together."
Nick nodded, thanked her, but when she turned to go he shoved the prints over to the corner of his desk, partway under a stack of old newspapers.
In between the front of a squad car and the back end of a rescue vehicle he focused on a torn fiberglass bumper that had been split in two and could make out the jagged crease across a University of Florida Gator sticker that his wife had jokingly stuck on their bumper just a few weeks earlier and he felt the constriction, like a knot of physical fear, rising up to choke him. He took three more steps toward the wreckage before his friend the patrolman could get to him and the view opened up to reveal a yellow sheet, that fucking yellow sheet, already spread over something in the road. He could feel someone's arms wrapping around his shoulders, more cops, more hands holding him back, and then he felt the rip of sound and pain that scorched the back of his throat when he started screaming.
"Hey, Nick, it's Kevin," the voice said and Nick realized that somehow he'd picked up the ringing phone without thinking about it.
"Yeah." Nick managed to cough out a response.
"Hey, man, you alright?"
Nick was staring out into the newsroom, seeing something he could not banish from the inside of his head.
"Yeah," he finally said into the phone. "I'm alright."
"OK, this is a bad one out here. They say the FHP investigator is on his way, so we're going to have to wait on the particulars 'cause they want everything to come through him. But from what I can tell we got at least two dead, maybe more. So I think we're going to send Lisa Browne over to Hollywood Memorial to check on victims over there, and maybe she can get some I.D.s from folks there. I'll just camp out here."
"Yeah, OK. That's cool," Nick said. "Give me what you've got so far."
He crooked the phone between his shoulder and ear and put his fingers on the keyboard to take dictation.
"You ready?"
"Yeah," Nick said. "Go ahead." He got home at eleven thirty, came through the front door tired and drained. Elsa was on the couch, lightly snoring as a Spanish-language soap opera played low on the television and flooded the open room with a blue glow. Nick covered her with an afghan and then went to check on Carly. In his daughter's room he stood in the darkness until his eyes adjusted and he could see her pale skin against the pillow, her mom's profile, her mouth slightly open, and he was somehow soothed by the sound of her breath rhythmically sighing in and out. He sat down carefully and reached out and just with the tips of his fingers he moved a strand of hair off her cheek and lightly stroked her head. He used to play a game after the girls fell asleep in which he tried to match his breathing to the beat of theirs and found that he could never keep up with the air that filled and emptied from their tiny lungs. He tried that now, and then curled up on the end of his daughter's bed and closed his eyes with the odor of her comforter in his nose and fell deeply asleep.