"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 that 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.