Eye of Vengeance

by Jonathon King

  Nick crouched back down and studied the smooth roll of the concrete ornament edge. Does a sniper leave scratches where he rests his weapon? Maybe an amateur would. Does a gunman leave a depression in this kind of stone? A knee print? An elbow? He lowered his face down to the surface, using the morning angle of the sun to try and spot some depression. He scooted on the balls of his feet and palms of his hands, nose down, first six feet to the left while checking the concrete edge for scratches, and then squinting at the stone for a change in shadow, then back. A second before it happened, he thought about how he might look to someone quietly coming up behind him.

  “Freeze, asshole!”

  Nick had to admit, even as a cliché, the words—yelled with a deep and hard voice—do make you freeze. They are cop words. And even though they are heard on television and in the movies more than on the real streets, real cops watch TV too. Stuck on all fours with his butt in the air, he had to be hopeful. After the initial shock, he started to turn his head.

  “I said don’t fucking move,” the voice said, big and very male. There was a heavy crunch of gravel now sounding behind him.

  Nick kept his nose down. His palms were flat on the roof surface. A vulnerable position, to say the least. He heard more footsteps moving closer and rolled his eyes up and forward to see the edge of the roofline. Still no scratches, only open air, four stories up. Could you survive a forty-foot jump? Or a forty-foot fall after someone kicked you over the edge?

  “It’s the reporter, Sergeant,” a smaller voice said. Nick recognized it as Cameron’s.

  “I know what the fuck it is,” the other voice said.

  The crunch of the footsteps was now directly behind him. Nick lifted his right hand and pointed up and back, at his right rear pocket.

  “My I.D. is in my wallet, sir,” he said into the smell of tar rising into his nose. “I’m Nick Mullins, from the Daily News.”

  “Good for you,” the voice said. “I told you NOT TO FUCKING MOVE!”

  Nick froze the arm and took a deep breath. He was now in a three-point stance, the sharp edge of a stone digging into his left palm. For some reason he had not registered the heat before. Now it was like he was hovering over a stove, waves rising into his shirt. He could feel sweat forming on his back. A line trickled across his rib cage. He wondered silently if sweat from someone lying up here waiting to shoot could be retrieved, if it could be used as a DNA marker.

  “I can confirm that, Sergeant,” he heard Cameron’s voice say. “It is Mullins.”

  The sergeant said nothing. His footsteps came closer and to Nick’s right. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a part of a thick-soled black shoe. The sergeant did not touch Nick’s wallet and moved off to his right. Nick sneaked another look, trying not to move his head as the man continued to step south. The shoes were shined brogans, cuffed trousers, legs too short for Hargrave. Nick’s shoulder was starting to sting now from the effort of holding most of his body weight. The stone in his palm was making its way through skin. The sergeant passed behind him and then wandered north a few steps. The sound of slow-moving traffic floated up from below. Above there was a soft chop of helicopter blades, getting louder. In the absence of a good I-95 morning wreck, the news pilots had responded to the shooting.

  “Excuse me, Sergeant,” Nick said, trying not to sound facetious, but knowing that he had never been good at not sounding facetious in such circumstances. “May I please stand up?”

  Cameron had not tried a second time to come to his aid.

  Another few seconds of silence passed.

  “Yeah, alright, reporter. Stand.”

  Nick rocked back on his heels and stood slowly, palms out and away from his sides. Better to acquiesce. He turned to the sergeant first, a thick man, his girth around both the waistline and the chest. Straw-blond hair. Fifties and with eyes that somehow showed mirth and disdain at the same time. Those eyes cut over toward the back of the roof. Against the sky stood the exclamation point. Hargrave dressed in black. Cameron was next to him.

  “You are disturbing a possible crime scene, Mr. Mullins,” Hargrave said in a voice so soft that at first Nick started to ask him to repeat himself but then realized he’d heard every word distinctly.

  Nick still had his hands out from his sides, palms toward them, a perfect opportunity to shrug his shoulders and look stupid. Hargrave ignored the gesture and started walking to the edge of the roof.

  “You may remove yourself, Mr. Mullins,” he said in the same clear quiet voice. His dark eyes had dismissed the reporter and gone on to more important matters, looking out across the street and then down, lining up a sniper’s shot.

  Nick knew his time on the scene was over. The burly sergeant took a step closer to him and flipped his extended hand in the direction of the service ladder like he was shooing an errant barnyard animal.

  Nick avoided making eye contact with Cameron as he went. He’d worked with the press liaison for the last couple of years and they’d normally gotten along. He was almost to the ladder when Hargrave’s quiet voice stopped him.

  “Mr. Mullins?”

  Nick looked back. The detective was now down on one knee, still looking out toward the jail, his long wiry frame seeming oddly bent.

  “Did you find anything?”

  The question confused Nick at first and he couldn’t respond. Hargrave turned his dark eyes on him.

  “Pick anything up?” he said.

  “No,” Nick said. “I wouldn’t do that to you guys. I’ve been around long enough.”

  Hargrave nodded before he looked away, but said nothing, so Nick did the same and silently walked back to the ladder.

  “Jesus, Nick,” Cameron whispered as he passed him.

  Nick peered over to the ground before swinging his leg to the top rung of the ladder, and saw two uniformed deputies below along with Susan, who was standing out in the parking lot a respectful distance from the cops. He faced the building and started down and could hear the shutter clicking on her camera. He turned his head and looked at the telephoto lens she had up to her face and stuck his tongue out. She smiled under the viewfinder and shrugged. From the final rung he jumped the last few feet to the ground and when he turned, the deputies were giving him that deadpan look they must be taught to use in the police academy. Nick didn’t know them and they could tell by the khaki pants, the oxford shirt and the notepad in his back pocket that he wasn’t one of them.

  “Morning, fellas,” Nick said. “Nice day for a shooting, huh?”

  They looked into his face like he was speaking Mandarin, then at each other and then up at the roof, where Cameron was just mounting the ladder to come down. Nick walked over to Susan, who was looking at her digital display.

  “Get a good shot of my ass while I was on the way down?”

  “Hard to miss,” she said. “But that’s all I got. You could have at least waited for me to come around so I could get up there with you.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Guess I wasn’t thinking. Just going on a feeling that it wasn’t just the weather those guys were staring up at from that spatter spot.”

  She was packing away her telephoto lens.

  “Find anything up there to prove it was a sniper?”

  Nick shook his head, as much at her skilled perception as at her question. She’d probably been ahead of him all along.

  “Clean,” he said, looking away from her instead of giving her the satisfaction of knowing that he was impressed with her deduction. He turned his attention to the double glass doors that led into the clinic. Witnesses? Just inside, Nick could make out the figure of a small man hovering, taking furtive looks out in the direction of the cops. Cameron had just made the last rung and stopped, trying to figure the easiest way to make the last leap.

  Nick sauntered as best he could over to the doors and when the little man saw him coming he hesitated, like he was going to scramble back inside, and then changed his mind and stepped out the door to meet him. Nick tried to look offi
cial and it worked.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Yes, sir. Good morning.”

  His name tag said DENNIS and he was dressed for work: dark slacks and a polo shirt with one of those sky-blue hospital smocks over it.

  “Mind if I ask you a question?”

  “No, sir. What’s, uh, going on?”

  “Well, there was a shooting across the street this morning,” Nick said.

  “Yes, we saw all the news trucks and traffic from the front windows,” the man said, looking over Nick’s shoulder to the uniformed deputies who were now talking with Cameron.

  “So these guys”—Nick nodded behind him—“were checking out your roof.”

  The man nodded as though it would be pretty routine for a handful of cops to be crawling up the side of his building.

  “Did anyone inside see anyone back here this morning when you all came into work?”

  “Just you people,” he said, finally looking into Nick’s face. “I figured there was something going on when I got here, but, you know, since your man didn’t say anything, I just went straight inside.”

  “You mean just a few minutes ago, Dennis?”

  Nick knew to always use the familiar first name if you could. It sometimes loosens them up.

  “Oh, no. Like, before eight.”

  “Before eight you saw one of these guys?” Nick said, nodding back at Cameron and the cops.

  “No. Not one of them. One of your, like, SWAT people, coming off the ladder.”

  The little man again looked over Nick’s shoulder. Cameron was heading their way.

  “What did this guy on the ladder look like?” Nick said, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice, knowing his interview was about to end.

  “You know, dressed in black with this equipment bag and stuff slung over his shoulder. Scared the hell out of me at first, you know, coming off the roof like that. Then he kind of just waved to me and then walked on by. Later, when I was inside and people started seeing stuff happening over at the jail, it, you know, made sense.”

  “Can you describe this man, this SWAT officer, Dennis? I mean, was he tall, short, white, black?”

  Skepticism started growing in Dennis’s eyes, then went into the wrinkles of his small forehead. “Are you with the police?” he said.

  “Oh, no,” Nick said, trying to look surprised that he’d been mistaken. “I’m with the Daily News, Dennis.” He offered his hand. “Nick Mullins. Just trying to figure out what happened this morning.” He could feel Cameron move up behind him.

  “Did this officer have any identifying marks on his, uh, uniform? You know, like the big yellow letters on his back or some kind of insignia on his chest or hat?”

  “No. Not that I can recall, exactly. I just sort of assumed after the commotion outside …,” the little man said and then looked again over Nick’s shoulder.

  “Nick. I need to talk with you.”

  Nick turned to face Cameron, again feigning surprise.

  “Oh, Mr. Cameron,” Nick said. “This is Dennis, Mr. Cameron. I was just interviewing him.”

  Nick could see the shadow of confusion cross the little man’s face.

  “Mr. Cameron is with the Sheriff’s Office, Dennis. They might want to talk with you also, but could I get your last name and your title at the clinic first, Dennis?” Nick said, taking out his notebook and pen.

  But Dennis was already starting to back away, maybe a little pissed, maybe just a little confused. And Cameron was turning Nick in the other direction with a subtle hold on his elbow.

  “Jesus, Nick,” he said. “What the hell were you doing up there?”

  “Just reporting, Joel.”

  “You just happened to leave a press briefing to take a walk on a roof?”

  “Well, it’s obviously a spot of interest for your guys,” Nick said, nodding up toward the building.

  The press officer said nothing. It was a game reporters played with public information officers. Cameron had been at it for a while. Nick had been at it longer.

  “Does Detective Hargrave think the shooter fired from up on the roof?”

  “That’s under investigation, Nick. You know I can’t tell you that without telling everyone else in the pool, man.”

  “That’s a pretty tough shot, Joel. Seems a long distance for some street slob trying to do a little vigilantism.”

  “Nobody said it was a vigilante.”

  “Nobody said it was a sniper yet either. But you’ve got the body of a prisoner over there and some pretty precise blood spatter on the wall and nobody else injured or wounded, which deals out the scattershot gangbangers.”

  “Nobody said it was gangbangers, Nick.”

  “So the victim isn’t a gang felon?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Nobody said it was an asshole pedophile who killed two little girls either,” Nick said and watched for the quick twitch in the corner of Cameron’s mouth that always gave him away

  Both of them stopped the dance for a silent few seconds. Cameron put his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground. Nick put his notebook away and started spinning the pen in his fingers like a miniature baton and watched the top of the ladder where Hargrave and his partner had not yet shown themselves.

  “Nick,” Cameron finally said. “How did you know to go up there? Were you tipped off?”

  This was what they called trading information. It was a subtle agreement to give each other what they had. The only rule was truth. But it worked with certain press officers, the ones with personal integrity and the ones who trusted that Nick wouldn’t burn them with the other media. Cameron was one of the few.

  “No,” Nick said. “It was just a guess based on your guys lining up the shot and the spatter pattern that our photographer caught with the zoom.”

  Cameron nodded. “And the pedophile thing?”

  “Just a tip, Joel. Nothing insidious.”

  Cameron shook his head. He knew Nick had made contacts over the years. He also knew he’d just made a bad bargain.

  “You’ll confirm if I get anything first, right?” Nick said just to make sure.

  Cameron kept shaking his head, this time with a grin. “Yeah, I’ll confirm. You just can’t use my name.”

  Nick returned the grin, slapped the press officer on the shoulder and walked away.

  Back out on the street, the media gang was peeling away. But the camera guys were still there. And two remote television news trucks were still on the sidewalk. That meant the body was also still there and hadn’t been moved and nothing with more violence or potential for blood had hit the police scanners in South Florida this morning. They were all waiting for the shot of the body bag being loaded into the medical examiner’s black SUV, the shot that would inevitably lead the local news.

  Nick made two stops on his way back to the newsroom. First to the coffee shop on the ground floor of his building, where he picked up a large with cream and sugar and then stood in the lobby letting the caffeine hit the back of his brain for a few minutes. When half the coffee was gone, he rode the elevator up and went the back way to the library and talked quietly to Lori.

  “I shipped a bunch of stuff to your queue, Nick,” she said. “Was it him?”

  “They’re not letting it loose officially yet,” he said. “But I think my source is good. What I want to do now is get some kind of an M.O. thing going. Can you do a search first locally and then nationwide on shootings, homicides that involved rifles and that might have been described as sniper-type shootings?”

  Lori was writing on a pad. “Pretty broad, but yeah, we can do all the South Florida media. National is going to take some time. We can do most of the online newspaper archives and the Associated Press stuff. How far back do you want to go?”

  “Two, three years,” Nick said. “No, make it four.”

  She looked up from her pad over the top of her frameless reading glasses. “You’ve got an editor’s approval on this, don’t you,
Nick?”

  In the corporate world of news gathering, computer search time was money. Somebody had to be held responsible for every dime spent. Nick knew that. Lori knew that.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Deirdre.”

  Lori was still looking over her lenses. “My ass,” she said.

  “OK. I’m grandfathered in,” Nick said.

  “My ass again,” she said, this time grinning.

  Nick just looked at her with his eyebrows up, surprised.

  Lori shook the pad at him and smiled. “Off the books,” she said. “For now.”

  Nick almost winked, but then thought, Don’t do that. That’s what Carly would call “weird Dad stuff.”

  “And speaking of books,” Lori said, bailing him out, “I’ve got that Van Gogh book that you said Carly might like.” She bent under the shelf and came up with a big picture book he’d commented on weeks ago.

  “How’s she doing, anyway?”

  “Better,” Nick said, taking the book and wondering about the coincidence that they’d both thought of his daughter at the same time. “She’ll love this, Lori. Thanks.”

  On the way back through the rat’s maze to his desk, Nick kept his coffee cup up to his face. Maybe no one would interrupt him at midswallow. But before he got to his chair an editor for the online edition of the paper asked if he had anything new on the jail shooting and could he please file something so they could put it up on the website. Nick just nodded. In another era newspaper reporters had a daily deadline: Get the best and most accurate story you can by nine or ten o’clock tonight so it makes the morning’s paper. Only the wire service and radio reporters had to make several updates during the day, leaving them little time to dig deeper into a story. But in a time of website mania, every daily reporter was in competition on an hourly basis. File what you have so the office workers sneaking looks at the news on their computers at their desks can follow your shifting speculation all day.