"Well, I'm not sure about that yet, Nick. All we have so far is a man down with units on the way. Might be heatstroke as far as we know."
Nick figured this was probably bullshit since he'd already heard the call about possible gunshots.
"And it's not at a DOC building. It's a parole office in the center there," she said, using her knowledge to one-up him, but inadvertently giving him information that he didn't have.
"OK, well, I'll check back with you later on that. Thanks a lot."
"Have a nice day," she said and hung up.
Nick did not apologize for being a skeptic-it came with the job. As a daily journalist you want to know immediately what's going on, even if you discard half of it later. The government or business entities you cover do not share that enthusiasm. They want to spin things so they don't look bad, or, Nick conceded, they want to have all their ducks in a row before they tell you. Nick recognized this. He in fact held the opinion that everything eventually would come out. Even the identity of Deep Throat came out. Sure, it was thirty years after Mark Felt's information put an end to President Nixon. Still, a journalist's hunger to know is what drives the good ones, and Nick was too hyped up about guys dropping in the streets from unheard gunshots to wait. He called a friend at the city of Pompano Beach with the paramedic rescue unit.
"Hey, Billy. Nick Mullins from the Daily News. How you doin'?"
"Nicky! Hey, what's going on? Your girls going to get involved with the softball league this year or what? We really need Lindsay on the mound again."
Billy Matthews was a city administrator who oversaw the fire and rescue services for the city. His daughter had been on the same athletic teams that Carly and Lindsay were on. They were passing friends due to being fathers. Billy had obviously forgotten about Lindsay and Julie's deaths when he'd picked up the phone.
"I'm not really sure yet, Bill. I'm going to have to see if Carly's up to it yet, you know."
"Jesus. I'm sorry, Nick. Yeah, sure, see if she's up to it. It would be great to see you two back involved, you know?"
Now it was coming back to him, Nick thought.
"Yeah. But Billy, right now I need some help on a call you guys have going over near the DOC office. My sources say there might be a shooting victim out there and, you know, I don't know if I should run up there on it. Could you do a check for me and see how serious it is? I'd appreciate it."
"Nobody here has said anything to me yet. Let me check a second. Let me make a call and get right back to you."
Nick knew he now had the poor guy over a barrel. The man had forgotten about Nick's dead wife and daughter. Now he had to figure he owed him something. And hell, it was probably nothing. Maybe some guy did have heatstroke and some old lady passing by started screaming gunshots. It was South Florida, after all, filled with both heat and easily wigged-out retirees.
Nick sat back down at his desk with the police radio turned up even if he did know that the cops would switch over to an unmonitored tactical channel if they found anything good. He went back to his computer, called up a blank screen and typed in some times and locations on the radio call like he usually did on a breaking story. If the early reports eventually washed out, he'd just kill the notes later. Still better to put some facts down just in case. He stored the file and then went back into some earlier stuff. He had not yet been through all the research on statewide shootings involving high-powered rifles.
He scrolled through the listings. Lori had been thorough, as was her way:
A forty-eight-year-old man up in the central part of the state killed by fellow hunter. I.D.s on both of them. Friends since grade school.
A woman in Tallahassee shot dead by her common-law husband with a rifle during a domestic dispute involving allegations of infidelity.
A mysterious killing in the Keys in which police found a man dead in his boat with a gunshot wound to the head. The caliber of the gun that killed him was considered a large-caliber in early stories. Nick read the follow-ups, feeling a slight shiver in his blood. Forensics found the bullet lodged in the interior gunwales of the dead man's boat. An odd.303-caliber. Nick jumped three stories and found disappointment. The killing had been attributed to another fisherman, pissed because he thought the other guy had been raiding his favorite holes. The shooter had turned himself in after four days of speculation. Nick did not recognize the names. He moved on.
Four stories later was a story out of Sebastian, a city on the east coast up north near Daytona. Indian County sheriff's officials have released the name of a man found dead in front of a west Sebastian home Thursday as Martin J. Crossly, a 32-year-old house painter who had apparently been renting the home for some eight months.
A medical examiner's report released over the weekend showed that Crossly, who was a former inmate at the Avon Park Correctional institution in Polk County, died of a single gunshot wound to the head. Police said today that Crossly had an extensive criminal history and had apparently been living in the Sebastian home on the north side along Louisiana Boulevard since being freed from prison in December after serving three years on a conspiracy charge.
Neighbors in the area near the FEC tracks said they were not familiar with Crossly and indicated that the home had long been used as a crack house before he moved in.
"The victim was shot once with a large-caliber bullet from an unknown rifle," said Deputy Chief Larry Longo of the Indian County Sheriff's Office. "With the kind of background this guy had, I'm sure he had plenty of enemies."
According to published reports, Crossly's prison stretch was the result of…
Nick did not need to read further. He knew Crossly's name, and knew his crime. Crossly was the delivery boy of a bomb that was sent to a small North Florida city meant to kill a woman who was turning state's evidence on a Broward drug dealer. Crossly's car was stopped by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper for speeding on an interstate near Tallahassee, only forty miles from his destination. Suspicious of the man's answers to questions concerning where he was headed and the fact that he was driving a rental car, the officer asked Crossly to open the trunk. Inside was a box wrapped in birthday paper. The trooper asked Crossly if he could open the package. When Crossly said sure, the cop unwrapped a microwave oven and, looking through the door window, saw a package of some sort inside. When he opened the door, a powerful bomb rigged to the handle exploded, blowing the trooper into pieces. In the grisly aftermath a medical examiner's team had to do a step-by-step inspection of a forty-yard circle around the point of detonation to collect the trooper's remains.
Nick had written a huge story on the case and had quoted several street sources about the close personal link between the drug dealer who sent the bomb and Crossly. On the corners of northwest Fort Lauderdale, Crossly was known as the dealer's enforcer. There was no doubt among rival dealers and runners that Crossly knew exactly what he was carrying that day. In time, the dealer was arrested and charged with the murder of a law enforcement officer and sent to death row. But despite Nick's stories, which, as usual, were never allowed in court, Crossly was able to lighten his load by agreeing to testify against the dealer. Prosecutors offered him a conspiracy charge and he took it. He had been out on parole when someone shot him dead on his porch.
Dr. Chambliss.
Martin Crossly.
Steven Ferris.
All criminals with ugly homicides in their pasts. All subjects of extensive stories Nick had done for his newspaper. All killed on the street. Coincidence?
Nick had done hundreds of stories about criminals over the years, and no doubt other journalists would have done pieces on these guys too. But Nick had stepped up on these guys. He'd been both pissed and fascinated by their crimes, and to prove they were evil he'd checked more sources, dug into pasts, quoted more than the official side. He hated to admit it, but Deirdre had let him do the kind of extensive pieces on these guys that few reporters were allowed, bless her clompy shoes.