“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 hate
d 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?”
Eye of Vengeance Page 10
