Hargrave opened the third door, checked for anyone inside and then nodded Nick in. The detective sat on the edge of a crowded desktop stacked with folders and what Nick recognized as Florida Statute books. With one skinny haunch on the desk, Hargrave’s knee hung at a ninety-degree angle like a broken stick and his elbow was bent in the same geometric way while he stroked his chin. Nick had an unwanted vision of an erector set flash through his head.
“Mr. Michaels was coming in for his weekly visit to his parole officer,” Hargrave began, opening his notebook as though he were checking the time. “A nine o’clock appointment. The PO says the guy had been consistent ever since he was released from his road prison gig last July. Hadn’t missed a check-in and his spot urine had been clean of drugs every time.”
“So how would our sniper know when and where he was coming in?” Nick asked, sitting down in the one chair that was probably meant for clients.
Hargrave hesitated at the question and looked Nick in the face. “Our sniper?” he finally said.
“OK, then, my sniper,” Nick said, surprising himself with the tight anger in his own voice. He took a deep breath and then laid his findings out for Hargrave, how his research showed that now there were four felons or ex-cons who were dead of high-powered rifle fire and who had also been the subjects of major takeouts that Nick had written for the Daily News. Yes, he admitted the jurisdictions of the first two were different, then these two right here in his backyard.
“It’s like he’s working off my damned bylines,” Nick said.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Hargrave. “Paranoia we don’t need, Mullins.”
Nick pressed his lips together into a hard line. OK, he thought. Don’t let your mouth get you into trouble again. This time he started out calmly, just the facts.
“Chambliss, Crossly, Ferris and now Michaels,” Nick said. “I’ve done special takeouts on every one of them. Big, bylined pieces.”
“So have half a dozen other reporters,” Hargrave said.
“No, not in-depth pieces. Not the kind of coverage that really showed who and what these guys were. Hell, some of these psychopaths never got more than their five minutes of media infamy,” Nick responded, again keeping his voice under control. “The Herald and the local city papers all did stories on Ferris. It was a big thing. But Chambliss wasn’t local. No other paper down here followed that.
“And this guy lying out there on the sidewalk? Everybody else just treated what he did to his girlfriend like it was some domestic fight.”
Hargrave was still perched on the desk like some kind of tabletop decoration, as if his stiff crane neck were going to dip his beak down into a cup of water at any moment.
“OK, say we inject your ego into the equation, Mullins,” he finally said. “You friendly with any good snipers? You have any grand theories on which master criminal you’ve written about is next on the list to have his head blown off? Maybe he’s just doing them alphabetically.”
Nick stared at the detective, not realizing his own mouth was slightly open while he went through the names in his head and realized that the detective had already mentally sorted them.
“Speaking of lists,” Nick said, figuring where the alphabet might fit in, thinking of the Secret Service man’s list.
Hargrave might have smiled, but anyone observing would have been hard-pressed to testify to it. The detective opened up his notebook and removed a sheet of paper. Nick tightened his fist, resisting the urge to reach out and snatch it from Hargrave’s hand.
The detective read, his eyes jumping from spot to spot on a page that Nick couldn’t see.
“Since you never gave me Chambliss and this Crossly guy, I’m a little reluctant to be handing over internal documents to some reporter.”
“They weren’t in your jurisdiction,” Nick said. “I figured you wouldn’t care.”
Hargrave just looked up over the top of the paper, his pewter-colored eyes static. Nick figured he was trying to think of something pithy. Or was he actually trying to decide whether he did give a damn? The praying mantis was not without some compassion, Nick thought. After another beat the detective handed the paper to Nick.
“Your copy,” he said.
Nick flipped it over. There was no heading, just a typed list of names and dates and jurisdictions that covered a number of different states. Someone had put checkmarks next to Chambliss, Crossly and Ferris. Michaels was farther down, not yet acknowledged. Nick again started from the top, searching while his heart rate increased looking for more names that he recognized as subjects of his own writing. He stopped at a couple of last names that were familiar, but one was in California and the other in Texas. Doubtful, he thought.
“So these are the ones that Fitzgerald is checking out?” Nick said.
“At least they’re the ones he was willing to give up.”
“You think he’s made the connection between these four and my stories?”
“Like I said about your ego, Mullins. Fitzgerald’s looking for a threat to the Secretary of State. He’s gonna tap anything he can, even if it’s some vigilante offing assholes who burned their lovers or raped little girls. A psycho is a psycho. Who knows their motivations?” Hargrave said. “But our guy isn’t some paid political assassin. Our guy is a whole different breed. Frankly, I don’t know what the hell he’s capable of.”
“OK, so we’ve got Charles Bronson playing sniper from the rooftops of Broward County.”
“You might put it that way, but my name better never show up agreeing with you,” Hargrave said. “Besides, the Bronson character was being a hell of a lot less discriminating than this guy. Our guy’s obviously doing some planning, lying in wait, leaving no sign other than the damn bullet behind.”
“You match them up with forensics?”
“I just shipped this one,” Hargrave said, jerking his thumb behind him toward the front where Michaels’s body was cooling on the street. “And we’ll have to get the others from those cases of yours out of our jurisdiction if they ever found or kept them. Believe it or not, every department doesn’t exactly follow CSI: Miami’s television protocol.”
Nick knew that crime scene technicians rarely did so much as a fingerprint check on ninety-nine percent of the crimes committed in their territory, much less ballistics and supposed laser scans. Only the high-profile murders would warrant that and this group of dead criminals were far below priority, though he had a feeling that was about to change.
Hargrave had gone quiet and Nick had the sense that this meeting was through.
“So what’s next?” he asked.
“To the morgue,” Hargrave said, standing up. “You want me to get your CD back from Dr. Petish while I’m there?”
Jesus, Nick thought, what doesn’t this guy know?
“No, that’s alright. I’ll just get it later after you get done,” he said, grinning.
They were at the door when Hargrave suggested that Nick go over the list that he’d given him and let him know if any of the names came up familiar on second reading.
“And speaking of lists,” the detective said, mocking Nick again. “Ms. Cotton claims she doesn’t have any kind of sympathy letters that she kept from the time after her children were killed.”
Nick didn’t know how to react. He was wondering why the woman would recant such a thing.
“But she’s not a very good liar,” Hargrave said. “She stonewalled me early this morning. Why don’t you take a visit and see if she’ll give them up to you?”
“Yeah, OK,” Nick said. “But I’m also going to need some information and quotes from you on this thing for tomorrow’s paper.”
Hargrave held Nick’s eyes for a moment and then seemed to give in to something he’d probably prided himself on for a career.
“Yeah, alright. Here’s my cell number. Call me when you need it.”
Nick took down the number and watched the detective pick his way through the office and leave. Then he stopped at the room where the
employees of the parole office had gathered.
“Excuse me,” he said and they all looked at him in anticipation. “I’m Nick Mullins from the Daily News. Can anyone tell me about what happened here?”
Chapter 19
Nick was inside with the parole office employees for a good forty minutes, taking down quotes and names and spending extra time with the woman whose dress was still spattered with blood, when Hargrave’s sergeant at arms came in with a disgruntled look and gave him the thumb.
Nick nodded, thanked the group and left the offices. Outside, there were a few television trucks around the circumference of the crime scene and the body of Trace Michaels had been removed. One of the Channel 7 guys was about to do a standup with the scene as his backdrop when his cameraman spotted Nick coming out the door and maybe mistook him for a detective. He gave his TV reporter the high sign. When the guy turned and recognized Nick, he passed the microphone and came over to meet him, lifting the crime scene tape as if he were doing Nick a courtesy.
“Nicky, hey, what the hell, man? You’re obtaining special access these days?” the reporter said, nodding back toward the crime scene.
“I don’t know about that, Colin. I got here early and they were still scrambling a little. I guess I kinda slipped through,” Nick said, giving the guy a little wink as though only they knew what that meant.
Nick was not into the “breaking exclusive” anymore. He’d been on the beat for enough years to have lost the instant competition shit that goes on in the news business. He wasn’t one to give away the farm, but he didn’t mind helping someone out with information he knew they were going to get from the press officer anyway. And it always helped to be one of the guys, us against them. He also often got a kick out of this chap’s British accent and breathless delivery of a particularly heinous crime. He pulled out his notepad and went through some of the basics for him: Trace Michaels’s name and date of birth, the fact that he was showing up to report to his PO when he was shot just outside the door and a little taste of what the employees were feeling on the inside, including a description of the woman who’d been just in front of the ex-con when he went down.
“Jesus. Did she see anything when it happened, you know, a drive-by or something?” the Brit said.
“No. She didn’t say,” Nick said, thinking of a way to move on without acting like he was keeping something important to himself. “She did get some of the guy’s blood spattered on her dress. You know, she was pretty upset.”
Nick could see the light go on in the guy’s head. “When it bleeds, it leads” was the unofficial motto of his station. He’d spend half the day out here for the chance to get a shot of the stained dress on a weeping witness.
“Christ, thanks, Nicky,” he said. “She’s still inside, then?”
“Yeah, probably be coming out soon. I can’t see them keeping the office open after all that.”
Nick shook the chap’s hand and walked away, only feeling a tiny bit guilty.
When he got to his car, Nick called the city desk and filled them in on the shooting of Trace Michaels, another criminal gunned down by an unknown assailant. He told the assistant editor on duty that he would continue working the story from the streets and that he would be in to write in a couple of hours. He also let them know that somewhere in the archives they would have a photo of Michaels to run with the story, as he had done a major piece on the guy before.
“OK, Nick. Great. But let me ask you something, though,” the assistant said. “This is like the one last week you did? The jail shooting?”
“Yeah, kind of,” Nick answered, knowing what was coming.
“So, you know, Deirdre was asking if we have some kind of a trend thing going here? I mean, maybe you could put together a trend piece or something for midweek?”
Yeah, thought Nick, a trend piece: Subjects of reporter’s stories being killed one by one at the hands of a serial sniper.
“Sure. Maybe. Let me get this one rolling first and tell her I’ll get with her later, OK?” he said instead.
“Great, Nick. See you when you get in.”
Nick could see the wheels working: Deirdre standing up at the noon editors’ meeting offering up the story, sketching out a real “reader” for the folks before she knew a goddamn thing. Nick shook it off. “Way of the world, man,” he whispered to himself and then started the car and headed west toward Margaria Cotton’s.
On the way he dialed Ms. Cotton’s number twice on his cell but only got an unanswered ring. He was trying to piece together why the woman would lie to Hargrave about the box of letters she’d kept from the time of her children’s death. She’d been far too open with him to have made something like that up and Nick couldn’t see a reason to keep it a secret from the detective. He was debating whether he should leave a note in her door explaining what he wanted when he finally turned the corner onto her small street and saw her old Toyota in the driveway. He pulled up on the patchy grass in front of the house and called her number one more time, getting the same unending ring as he walked up the cracked sidewalk.
Again the small figure of Ms. Cotton opened the front door before Nick had the chance to knock. And again the interior of her small home was dark and cool behind her.
“Hello, Mr. Mullins,” she said in her deceptively soft but strong voice. “I figured you would be coming.”
Nick stepped in, his thoughts tossed off-balance once again by this tiny woman.
“I tried to call ahead, Ms. Cotton. To see if you were in.”
“Yes, I’m sorry,” she said, motioning him to the sofa. “I didn’t mean to make you think I was some sort of psychic. I do have caller I.D. on the phone. I just don’t like to answer it all the time. Better to talk to folks face to face, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I agree,” Nick said, thinking that the line could have come from his own mouth. Maybe she was psychic.
He sat down and on the glass-topped table before him was an old shoe box with a piece of string tied at its center. Ms. Cotton sat opposite him, the same as she had during his previous visit. When he looked up into her face, he saw that she too was looking down at the box.
“These are the letters?” he asked, stating the obvious. The woman only nodded.
“So would it be alright if I took them with me, Ms. Cotton?” Nick continued. “I’ll certainly return them, but I’d like to go through them carefully, you know.”
Ms. Cotton nodded again. “You can keep them, Mr. Mullins,” she said and clasped her fingers as if to show that she would not pick up the box again.
“I, uh—no, ma’am,” Nick stammered, not understanding, or perhaps not wanting to. “I’ll get them back to you.”
“No, sir. I am finished with them, Mr. Mullins,” she said, rising to her feet again.
“OK, well. Can I ask you, Ms. Cotton,” Nick said, treading carefully, “why did you tell the detective that you didn’t have these?”
The tiny woman looked down at him with a quizzical expression on her face, like she was surprised he didn’t understand.
“Because they aren’t for him, Mr. Mullins. He didn’t lose his child. They’re for you,” she said as though the meaning were obvious. Again, Nick looked into this strange woman’s eyes that were prying into the corners of his heart like she knew what lay there better than he himself did.
“I’m not sure what you mean, Ms. Cotton. What my daughter has to do with this,” Nick said, stumbling into something personal, a major professional misstep.
“This is really just research, to see if we recognize any names or, you know, recognize any threats of retribution,” he said, trying to recover, but seeing that odd, almost unnatural light in Ms. Cotton’s eyes as if she knew something he needed to grasp.
“What’s in them isn’t for retribution,” she said quietly. “It’s for your forgiveness.”
She was staring down now at her hands, almost as if in prayer. Nick was at a loss, the word forgiveness rolling in his mouth like a new taste t
hat was so foreign to him he had to decide whether to savor it or spit it out.
“I don’t know what you mean, Ms. Cotton,” he finally said.
The woman looked up and held his eyes.
“You’ve got another daughter, Mr. Mullins,” she said, “who’s going to need that.”
Nick put the box of letters in the passenger seat of his car and started back to the newsroom, trying to sort out what the woman had said and then giving it up as the ramblings of someone who’d been knocked off her orbit of logic by her tragedies. But each time he was stopped by a traffic light he found himself glancing over at the lid of the box, the simply tied bow of string holding it together, and a nervous energy built in his veins. Was she warning him? Was she cursing him? What kind of forgiveness could be held in a box full of letters not even meant for him to read? A horn blew behind him and he accelerated through a newly greened light and then snapped open his cell phone: Things to do, not to dwell on.
He dialed in to the newspaper library using Lori’s direct line.
“Daily News research,” she announced when she picked up.
“Lori, Nick. Hey, can you run a name for me, please? I’m coming in from a shooting from this morning. The vic’s name is Trace Michaels, common spelling.”
“Got it. Another single gunshot wound to the head?”
“Yeah, but I gotta tell you, Lori, I’m not sure I like the fact that you’re always ahead of me,” Nick said with a smile at the corners of his mouth. He knew she kept an ear on what was happening in the newsroom during the day and that she also would have been required to be at the morning news editors’ meeting where they discussed what might make the next day’s paper.
“You have no idea how far ahead of you I am, Nick.”
But before he could ask what she meant by that, she changed the subject.
“Did you do a piece on this guy in the past too?” she asked and he could tell from the slight lilt in her voice that there was more in the question so he didn’t answer right away, waiting for the punch line.
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