“On my way.”
Gannon turned to face Katrina.
“On your way where?” she asked.
“Really, Katrina? You’ve got to be kidding.” Gannon saw Dixon signaling to hustle to his parked car.
“I thought we were friends, we could help each other,” she said.
“Friends? Give me a break.”
“Maybe I handled things wrong. I’m sorry if I hurt you, Jack.”
“I’ve got to go.”
“You’re seriously not going to tell me?”
Gannon left her standing there and rushed to Dixon’s Dodge Journey. Ten minutes later, he watched Lower Manhattan and the East River rush by as Dixon accelerated on FDR Drive, weaving through northbound traffic. As they passed the United Nations and the span of the Queensboro Bridge, Dixon estimated they’d get to Ramapo in an hour.
“By the way, what was that with your extremely hot girlfriend?”
“Ex.”
“All right, your extremely hot ex-girlfriend.”
“Nothing, Angelo.”
“Right.” Dixon laughed.
Gannon’s thoughts of Katrina were eclipsed by the knot tightening in his stomach.
Four homicides awaited him.
5
Ramapo, Metropolitan New York City
Whomp-whomp-whomp…
A few miles south of Ramapo police roadblocks halted traffic in the south- and northbound lanes of the thruway while a New York State Police helicopter cut across the sky above Gannon and Dixon.
After showing press ID at the roadblock, they were waved through.
Maneuvering through the traffic, Dixon got them down to the exit for the service center, then to the first entrance, but no farther. It was blocked by patrol units with Rockland County.
An officer stepped up to Dixon’s SUV.
“You’re going to have to turn around, sir. You can’t go any farther.”
“We’re press.”
“Who are you with?”
“WPA.” Dixon and Gannon held up plastic IDs from their neck chains.
“All right. Park with the others and stay outside the tape.” The officer pointed to the distant landscaped island with the service center’s sign.
Gannon took stock of the knot of news trucks and cars emblazoned with station call letters. But no media people were around. Dixon grabbed his gear and they walked quickly, keeping outside the yellow tape that stretched around the perimeter of the huge lot. Along the way, they came to clusters of onlookers at the tape and stopped to talk to them.
“All I know is my sister’s a waitress in the restaurant and nobody can tell me anything,” said Reeve Torbey, a man in his twenties wearing a faded Guns & Roses T-shirt. “I texted her, tried calling her cell, the restaurant. I can’t get through.”
Gannon quoted him, got his cell number and left his card, urging him to call and promising to share information.
Agnes Slade, a woman with silver hair pulled up in a bun, shielded her eyes as she stared at the center, a phone clutched in one hand.
“My son’s in town and just called me. He said police are searching everywhere,” she told Gannon. “Things like this just don’t happen here.”
As Gannon and Dixon moved on, the sound of approaching sirens underscored the drama. Gannon heard the deep rumble of a Cessna.
Could be TV news, or police searching for suspects, he figured.
“Here we go,” Dixon said.
Amid the gaps in the lake of rigs, cars and emergency vehicles parked in the lot, Dixon glimpsed the armored truck and crime scene techs working around it. He steadied himself and focused his long lens.
Gannon moved on, exploring farther. Over his years as a crime reporter with the Buffalo Sentinel, he knew what to glean from a scene to give his work depth and accuracy. He’d studied the same textbooks detectives studied to pass their exams. And he’d researched and reported on enough homicides and murder trials to know the anatomy of an investigation.
It had earned him the respect of the seasoned detectives he knew.
Forty yards from Dixon, Gannon stopped and signaled him to the spot.
“Have a look through there.”
They still saw the armored car, but from this different perspective they could now see the sheet on the pavement covering the victim near it. Dixon took more pictures.
“Look through the entrance doors,” Gannon said.
A cloud passed, dimming the sun’s reflection on the glass doors, allowing Dixon to see inside and make out two more sheets covering victims on the lobby floor. In one case, a boot extended from under the sheet. Keeping beyond the tape, Dixon took more pictures, framing them with the outside victim and armored truck in the foreground and the two victims inside in the background with investigators bent over them.
It was a powerful news photo.
A uniformed cop yelled at them to keep moving and pointed toward the flagpoles farther along. As they walked away, Gannon glanced around the scene, feeling the clock ticking down. He had to find a way into the heart of what had happened here and why.
His BlackBerry vibrated with a text. The WPA’s news desk advised him that their stringer was having car trouble and would be late. Gannon was not concerned the WPA had dispatched more staff from headquarters.
Gannon and Dixon could handle the early work.
About a dozen news types were gathered at the flagpoles in what was an impromptu press area. Four TV news cameras topped tripods and a couple of photographers chatted with people holding notebooks, recorders and microphones with station flags.
Gannon checked his BlackBerry again. The WPA had already moved another short news hit out of headquarters. The latest read:Four people are dead after the brazen robbery of an American Centurion armored truck at the Freedom Freeway Service Center in Ramapo, at New York City’s northern edge, according to local authorities. The suspects remain at large.
“Carrie Carter, WRCX Radio 5 News.” A woman in her mid-twenties smiled at Gannon. “Who are you with?”
“WPA.” Given the size of the group, Gannon figured not all the press from the city had arrived yet. “So what’s going on here?”
“You tell us. The WPA beat everybody with that first wire story.”
“What have they told you here so far? Looks like you’re set up for a briefing. They talk to you yet?” Gannon asked.
“Not yet. Ramapo P.D. promised us a press briefing in ten minutes,” Carrie said, “but that was twenty-five minutes ago.”
Gannon knew armored car robberies fell to FBI jurisdiction and figured the local cops were likely sorting out just who was going to say what. Glancing to the parking area, he saw satellite trucks from the networks and other news cars arriving.
“What’s on the other side of the complex?”
“Nothing, just administrative offices,” Carrie said. “There’s nothing going on. The entire property is taped off. Police are everywhere. I’ve never seen so many.”
Gannon had to make a choice: stay and be spoon-fed information, or go digging. Figuring he didn’t have much time, he jotted his cell number on his business card and passed it to Carrie Carter.
“Will you do me a favor, Carrie? Call me the moment it looks like they’ll start?”
“Sure.” She glanced at his card. “Jack Gannon? I’ve heard of you. You broke that big story about the scientist who stole the old CIA experiment.”
Gannon nodded, then advised Dixon, who was gossiping with a photographer, that he was going off alone to check a few things out. They’d alert each other if something came up.
He walked quickly along the tape, scrutinizing every window of the center, every movement, every RV, car, truck, ambulance, patrol car and emergency vehicle. He knew that inside the center, police were taking statements from witnesses, getting their accounts while everything was fresh. Crime scene techs would be photographing, tagging and bagging. The county medical examiner would be called in.