"That situation was different, Nick. That was personal. You're an employee. It would have looked prejudicial."
"But you want me to call this guy a sniper on the front page before we know who or what he is," Nick said, trying to make the statement sound smug, but that emotion was no longer in him.
Deirdre just looked down at her desktop.
"I'll keep chasing what happens next," Nick said, getting up. "You'll get the truth in my story at eight."
As he turned to go, Deirdre couldn't help herself, as if her comeback were so ingrained in her psyche that it was like an involuntary muscle response:
"The truth is in the-"
"Yeah, yeah," Nick interrupted. "The eye of the beholder."
He didn't turn around, just kept walking out the door.
Chapter 11
When he got back to his desk, Nick started to call up the list from research but only got back to Dr. Chambliss's name when his phone rang.
"Mr. Mullins? This is Brian Dempsey. I'm a lawyer representing Margaria Cotton, the woman whose children were killed by Mr. Ferris four years ago that you wrote about in the paper today."
Nick was instantly wary. Lawyers, by profession, are not impartial. They do what they need to do to help their clients. A reporter never talks to an attorney without thinking, Wha's his motive?
"Yes, Mr. Dempsey. What can I do for you, sir?"
"Well, Mr. Mullins, against my advice, Ms. Cotton would like to meet with you."
"Great," Nick said and then quickly toned down his exuberance. "I'd lost touch with her, Mr. Dempsey, and didn't have a contact number or I certainly would have interviewed her for today's story."
Nick could hear the lawyer's hesitation in the beat of silence.
"Ms. Cotton has tried very hard to keep her life private after her tragedy, Mr. Mullins. But I felt duty-bound to pass on your request to speak with her and again, against my advice, she would like to meet with you first."
"First?"
"Yes, Mr. Mullins. Investigators from the Sheriff's Office are also interviewing Ms. Cotton today in my office, at one o'clock this afternoon. She would like to speak with you first."
Nick looked at the huge clock on the wall, omnipresent in the newsroom to remind everyone of their daily deadlines. It was nearly eleven.
"OK. At your office, then, Mr. Dempsey?"
"No. Ms. Cotton would like you to come to her home. She's awaiting your arrival. When you're through, I hope you could give her a ride to the Sheriff's Office in time for the detectives, if you would."
"Absolutely, sir."
The attorney gave Nick the addresses of both Cotton's home and his law office.
"And please, Mr. Mullins," he said before hanging up, "I hope you can appreciate the delicacy of this matter."
Nick could not come up with an answer to the statement before the line went quiet. He looked up again at the clock. Cotton's address was less than twenty minutes from the newsroom, thirty even if traffic was bad. He closed the research file in front of him, stuck his reporter's notebook in his pocket and told the assistant city editor that he was going out on an interview and could be reached on his cell phone if they needed him.
Standing at the elevator door, Nick could feel an electricity in his blood. You're not supposed to get giddy when you're going to talk with a woman whose children were raped and murdered. But he still gave up on waiting for the elevator and took the six flights of stairs to the parking level, two steps at a time. Nick looked at the address on the page of his notebook one more time and then slowly rolled up Northwest Tenth Avenue. The houses were single-story and all seemed to be painted a dusty color-pale yellow, powder blue-and even the white ones gave off a hue of bone. The yards were mottled with patches of dirt and the green grass seemed to have been robbed of its chlorophyll. The macadam road surface had been bleached a soft gray by the sun. Nick always wondered at the ability of poor and neglected neighborhoods to dull even the effects of the bright Florida sunshine. Postcard photos were never taken here.
The number he was looking for was not visible on the house where it should have been. He drove past two more before spotting an address painted above a doorway and then put the car in reverse and backed up, subtracting by lot. He pulled into the two-strip concrete drive in front of a dull beige clapboard home that must have been built in the early 1960s. But the roof was newly shingled. There was a potted red geranium on the front step and the porch had been swept clean. When Nick raised his hand to knock, the inside door opened before his knuckles touched wood.
"Good morning, Mr. Mullins," the woman's voice said.
"Ms. Cotton?" Nick said, though he still could only see her dark figure in the shadows of the room.
"Please," she said, pushing open the screen door for him to enter. Nick took note of the thin forearm, mottled as much as the grass yard, with patches of pink marring the naturally dark skin.
"Thank you, ma'am," Nick said, taking two steps into a darkened living room where the odor of medicine and potpourri battled one another.
When his eyes adjusted he could see the features of Margaria Cotton's face and small figure. They had changed over the years, pulled perhaps by the gravity of grief, as if every bone and every centimeter of skin had been attached to a weight. Her shoulders were slumped, her back, which had been proudly stiff when she sat in the courtroom for Ferris's sentencing, was bowed forward. Her cheekbones were sharp, but in the way of malnutrition versus some role of fashion. Nick, as was his way, preferred to watch her eyes, which still held the intelligence and strength that he had noted three years ago. She did the same, meeting his gaze, not with defiance, but more as a way of showing her confidence and lack of pretension.
"Can I get you something, Mr. Mullins? Coffee? Water?" she said while extending her hand to show him a seat.
"No. Thank you. I'm fine, ma'am."
The woman nodded and took a seat opposite him on a sofa. A low, glass-topped table separated them. Nick noted the stack of newspapers on one end, the Daily News and, he could tell by the style of the type, the Herald, and at least one out-of-town publication.
"I was hoping to get in touch with you, Ms. Cotton," he began. "I assume that you have heard of the shooting death of Mr. Ferris."
"Yes," she said, folding her hands in her lap. "Mr. Dempsey called me yesterday. And I read it in the newspapers this morning." She too looked over at the papers.
"I read the news every day, Mr. Mullins. I suppose it isn't always healthy to let all that ugliness inside my house," she said, but did not look around herself when she made the comment. Nick, however, took the opportunity to take in the small wooden cross mounted on the wall behind her. It was flanked by the elementary school photos of what he recognized as her daughters. They were the same photos that his newspaper had used during the coverage of their killing. The same computer-stored photos had run in this morning's edition.
"I know it might sound kind of, you know, sick," she said, bringing his attention back to her eyes. "But there is something about the tragedies of others, Mr. Mullins, that helps remind me that I am not the only one suffering."
Nick nodded his head.
"I am sorry about your children, Ms. Cotton," he said, motioning slightly to the photos behind her with his eyes.
"You were very kind to us in your stories, Mr. Mullins. There was a word my minister used for it, I forget…" She closed her eyes for a moment, searching. "Compassion. That was it. He said your writing had compassion in it."
Again, all Nick could do was nod. He noted the diction in her conversation. A poor black woman, but one who was educated, maybe even well read. She went out of her way to choose her words in the presence of someone like Nick, only letting an occasional slip of slang enter her sentences. It was perhaps an unconscious habit she fell into when she wanted her listener to be comfortable. Nick did the same thing when he was with southerners, slipping into a minor drawl that did not belong to him. His daughters always noticed and would tell him later that he had embarrassed them. He shook off the recollection and reached into his back pocket. He took out the notebook and drew a pen from his shirt, a signal that he was here to work.