"You may remove yourself, Mr. Mullins," he said in the same clear quiet voice. His dark eyes had dismissed the reporter and gone on to more important matters, looking out across the street and then down, lining up a sniper's shot.
Nick knew his time on the scene was over. The burly sergeant took a step closer to him and flipped his extended hand in the direction of the service ladder like he was shooing an errant barnyard animal.
Nick avoided making eye contact with Cameron as he went. He'd worked with the press liaison for the last couple of years and they'd normally gotten along. He was almost to the ladder when Hargrave's quiet voice stopped him.
"Mr. Mullins?"
Nick looked back. The detective was now down on one knee, still looking out toward the jail, his long wiry frame seeming oddly bent.
"Did you find anything?"
The question confused Nick at first and he couldn't respond. Hargrave turned his dark eyes on him.
"Pick anything up?" he said.
"No," Nick said. "I wouldn't do that to you guys. I've been around long enough."
Hargrave nodded before he looked away, but said nothing, so Nick did the same and silently walked back to the ladder.
"Jesus, Nick," Cameron whispered as he passed him.
Nick peered over to the ground before swinging his leg to the top rung of the ladder, and saw two uniformed deputies below along with Susan, who was standing out in the parking lot a respectful distance from the cops. He faced the building and started down and could hear the shutter clicking on her camera. He turned his head and looked at the telephoto lens she had up to her face and stuck his tongue out. She smiled under the viewfinder and shrugged. From the final rung he jumped the last few feet to the ground and when he turned, the deputies were giving him that deadpan look they must be taught to use in the police academy. Nick didn't know them and they could tell by the khaki pants, the oxford shirt and the notepad in his back pocket that he wasn't one of them.
"Morning, fellas," Nick said. "Nice day for a shooting, huh?"
They looked into his face like he was speaking Mandarin, then at each other and then up at the roof, where Cameron was just mounting the ladder to come down. Nick walked over to Susan, who was looking at her digital display.
"Get a good shot of my ass while I was on the way down?"
"Hard to miss," she said. "But that's all I got. You could have at least waited for me to come around so I could get up there with you."
"Sorry," he said. "Guess I wasn't thinking. Just going on a feeling that it wasn't just the weather those guys were staring up at from that spatter spot."
She was packing away her telephoto lens.
"Find anything up there to prove it was a sniper?"
Nick shook his head, as much at her skilled perception as at her question. She'd probably been ahead of him all along.
"Clean," he said, looking away from her instead of giving her the satisfaction of knowing that he was impressed with her deduction. He turned his attention to the double glass doors that led into the clinic. Witnesses? Just inside, Nick could make out the figure of a small man hovering, taking furtive looks out in the direction of the cops. Cameron had just made the last rung and stopped, trying to figure the easiest way to make the last leap.
Nick sauntered as best he could over to the doors and when the little man saw him coming he hesitated, like he was going to scramble back inside, and then changed his mind and stepped out the door to meet him. Nick tried to look official and it worked.
"Good morning," he said.
"Yes, sir. Good morning."
His name tag said DENNIS and he was dressed for work: dark slacks and a polo shirt with one of those sky-blue hospital smocks over it.
"Mind if I ask you a question?"
"No, sir. What's, uh, going on?"
"Well, there was a shooting across the street this morning," Nick said.
"Yes, we saw all the news trucks and traffic from the front windows," the man said, looking over Nick's shoulder to the uniformed deputies who were now talking with Cameron.
"So these guys"-Nick nodded behind him-"were checking out your roof."
The man nodded as though it would be pretty routine for a handful of cops to be crawling up the side of his building.
"Did anyone inside see anyone back here this morning when you all came into work?"
"Just you people," he said, finally looking into Nick's face. "I figured there was something going on when I got here, but, you know, since your man didn't say anything, I just went straight inside."
"You mean just a few minutes ago, Dennis?"
Nick knew to always use the familiar first name if you could. It sometimes loosens them up.
"Oh, no. Like, before eight."
"Before eight you saw one of these guys?" Nick said, nodding back at Cameron and the cops.
"No. Not one of them. One of your, like, SWAT people, coming off the ladder."
The little man again looked over Nick's shoulder. Cameron was heading their way.
"What did this guy on the ladder look like?" Nick said, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice, knowing his interview was about to end.
"You know, dressed in black with this equipment bag and stuff slung over his shoulder. Scared the hell out of me at first, you know, coming off the roof like that. Then he kind of just waved to me and then walked on by. Later, when I was inside and people started seeing stuff happening over at the jail, it, you know, made sense."
"Can you describe this man, this SWAT officer, Dennis? I mean, was he tall, short, white, black?"
Skepticism started growing in Dennis's eyes, then went into the wrinkles of his small forehead. "Are you with the police?" he said.
"Oh, no," Nick said, trying to look surprised that he'd been mistaken. "I'm with the Daily News, Dennis." He offered his hand. "Nick Mullins. Just trying to figure out what happened this morning." He could feel Cameron move up behind him.
"Did this officer have any identifying marks on his, uh, uniform? You know, like the big yellow letters on his back or some kind of insignia on his chest or hat?"
"No. Not that I can recall, exactly. I just sort of assumed after the commotion outside…," the little man said and then looked again over Nick's shoulder.
"Nick. I need to talk with you."
Nick turned to face Cameron, again feigning surprise.
"Oh, Mr. Cameron," Nick said. "This is Dennis, Mr. Cameron. I was just interviewing him."
Nick could see the shadow of confusion cross the little man's face.
"Mr. Cameron is with the Sheriff's Office, Dennis. They might want to talk with you also, but could I get your last name and your title at the clinic first, Dennis?" Nick said, taking out his notebook and pen.
But Dennis was already starting to back away, maybe a little pissed, maybe just a little confused. And Cameron was turning Nick in the other direction with a subtle hold on his elbow.
"Jesus, Nick," he said. "What the hell were you doing up there?"
"Just reporting, Joel."
"You just happened to leave a press briefing to take a walk on a roof?"
"Well, it's obviously a spot of interest for your guys," Nick said, nodding up toward the building.
The press officer said nothing. It was a game reporters played with public information officers. Cameron had been at it for a while. Nick had been at it longer.
"Does Detective Hargrave think the shooter fired from up on the roof?"
"That's under investigation, Nick. You know I can't tell you that without telling everyone else in the pool, man."
"That's a pretty tough shot, Joel. Seems a long distance for some street slob trying to do a little vigilantism."
"Nobody said it was a vigilante."
"Nobody said it was a sniper yet either. But you've got the body of a prisoner over there and some pretty precise blood spatter on the wall and nobody else injured or wounded, which deals out the scattershot gangbangers."
"Nobody said it was gangbangers, Nick."
"So the victim isn't a gang felon?"