"Instead I'm looking into any connection between this guy and the one from last week, but as of this minute, I don't have anything," he began again, quietly. "Research is running some driver's license history to see if they ever even lived in the same area. And I'm trying to get the probable-cause affidavits from their prior arrests to see if they were ever listed as running together on any of their earlier crimes."
The investigative theory, Nick knew, was to find out if any of the victims had something in common that might be a motive for their killer, and by now Nick and Hargrave were both on that page.
"Alright, alright. Do what you're doing, Nick," Deirdre said and started to walk away, but stopped. "And hey, send some of your contact numbers with the Sheriff's Office over to the national desk so they can assign someone to that OAS security story."
Nick nodded and she spun on her heel again, but not all the way around.
"And hey, why not check the DOC files too. See if these guys ever spent prison time together, you know, for midweek. But not today. Today," she said, looking at her watch, "we got deadline."
As she left, Nick was cursing himself. OK, OK. I didn't tell her about the other sniper shootings out of our area, or my byline connections with these guys, five now, just like Berkowitz, smart-ass. But you are not the story, Nick. You are not the story. Hargrave had already given him shit about that theory being an ego trip and he sure wasn't tossing that ammunition to Deirdre.
He turned back to his computer and started clicking keys. But that was good about the DOC files. Why didn't I think of that? By seven o'clock Nick had finished the Michaels shooting story. He had not been able to track down the girlfriend that the ex-con had set aflame. His contact, a social worker in the hospital where the woman was treated, could only tell him that the burn victim and her daughter had moved out of state. The attorney who prosecuted Michaels would only say things like "What goes around, comes around" that were off the record. The public defender that represented Michaels had moved on to another lawyer job.
Nick ended up laying it out in simple news style: A 43-year-old construction laborer was shot to death outside a Pompano Beach parole office early Monday morning, just as he was entering for a weekly appointment.
Trace Michaels, who worked part-time with Hardmack Construction, was declared dead at the scene in the 100 block of McNab Road, police said. He was shot once in the head, police said.
The shooting of Michaels, who had recently served five years in prison for attempted manslaughter after setting his girlfriend aflame during an argument, was the second time in two weeks that an ex-convict has been murdered in Broward County. But sheriff's detectives investigating the shootings say they have yet to find any evidence linking the two cases.
Nick had then run out the story with quotes from the office employees at the scene and from Joel Cameron, who had given the basics of the "ongoing investigation" to all the media. While he was constructing the piece he had typed into the file some of the linkages with the lists that Hargrave had given him from the Secret Service agent and his own research from the library but had then deleted the information off his screen. If the only thread in the cases was that he had written extensive stories about the shooting victims, he wasn't going to go there. A journalist wasn't supposed to be part of any story, and he sure as hell wasn't going to go there without a lot more factual evidence.
Before he wrapped up the piece, he gave Hargrave a final call. He went through the basics of what the next morning's story would say. Hargrave only listened and gave an occasional grunt of assent, or maybe just of boredom.
"So what else do you want, Mr. Mullins?"
"It's the serial killer thing, Detective. You and I both know the other newspapers and TV are going to start pounding the hell out of that line whether they have any facts or not," Nick said. "My editors are already on my ass about it."
Hargrave again went quiet, deciding something.
"We've got a ballistics match on the bullets used in both Michaels and Ferris," he finally said. "But that's not a public fact yet, Mr. Mullins. And I don't want it to be public yet."
Nick had been in on such negotiations before. Official sources and reporters played the game every day.
"OK. Give me something else," he said. "Something that's going to benefit both of us, because you know and I know the stories I'm going to have to write if these names keep matching up."
Again silence. But this time Nick knew the detective was being thoughtful instead of uncooperative. They both knew what the accuracy, efficiency and technique of the shooter meant. Unlike the Beltway shooter, this wasn't some kid in a trunk shooting people for some insane reason. This shooter was a professional, either military- or law-enforcement-trained. Without either one of them naming it, or its purpose, they collaborated on a message in the form of a quote: "We will investigate both shootings as we would any illegal killing. The victims' pasts don't open up an avenue for them to be gunned down in the streets. That's not how law enforcement works in a democracy. That's not how this country operates," said Broward sheriff's homicide detective Maurice Hargrave.
The quote went high in the story.
"Maurice?" Nick had said on the phone after asking for Hargrave's full name.
"Shut up," the detective had answered.
Chapter 20
On the drive home Nick paid little attention to the traffic rules. He was in the passing lane of 1-95 northbound doing well over the sixty-five limit. He had promised his daughter that he would no longer show up from work after her bedtime and that he would no longer be the father who was absent from his family's dinner table, even if it was just the two of them. And because he missed her. His wife was gone. Lindsay was gone. All Nick had left was this dry, document-chasing, linguistic-game-playing pursuit of the truth that he called work, and Carly. There was no competition. Carly would win hands down, he told himself over and over and over again.
He skipped up the driveway and walked through the front door, dropping Margaria Cotton's box of letters on the couch out of sight. Elsa passed him with a basket of laundry and said good evening in a professional manner and her strict avoidance of eye contact screamed that he had fucked up again.
Carly was at the kitchen table doing homework. Dinner was done. The dishes cleared. Nick fought the mood with a chipper "Hi, sweetheart, whatcha' doin'?"
His daughter did not look up. He pulled out the chair next to her and sat. He studied her hair, the hues of blond the sun had put in it, the glisten, just like her mother's. She used her left hand to pull one long, loose strand and tucked it behind her ear and he still stared, now at the exposed profile.
"What," she finally said, without moving her eyes from the page, "are you looking at?"
"A pretty girl," he said. He got not a crinkle of response in the corner of her eye or flinch of a smile at the corner of her mouth.
"One that is trying to get her homework done?" she said instead and the exasperation in her voice was much too mature for a nine-year-old and even though it was a good approximation of a pissed-off adult, it didn't quite work.
"No. One who cannot hide her wonderful heart," Nick said. "I'm sorry I'm late, babe. I got kinda caught up at the office."
"I know," she said, still not looking up. It had been his standard excuse for years.
"I know you know," he said, pushing back his chair, the wooden legs screeching on the floor.
The noise seemed to startle the girl. She jumped, just slightly, and then she pushed her own chair back and rose as Nick pivoted and she climbed into his lap and he could feel the wetness from her eyes against his neck and he held her and could think of nothing to say but kept repeating, "I'm sorry, honey. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"