"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 ent.i.ties 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 ident.i.ty 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. Daily News. How you doin'?" 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 pa.s.sing 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."

"n.o.body 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 h.e.l.l, it was probably nothing. Maybe some guy did have heatstroke and some old lady pa.s.sing 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 Tallaha.s.see 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, p.i.s.sed 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 inst.i.tution 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 Tallaha.s.see, 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 p.i.s.sed 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.

He started to scroll down the research list again, hungry this time for names that he recognized. He was about to call Lori's desk to get her to run another search, this time matching any names in the stories she'd sent him and his own byline. He was reaching for the phone when it rang just as his fingertips touched it, causing him to flinch.

"Nick Mullins," he said, finally picking up the line.

"It's Billy, Nick. Hey, this is all on the QT, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, Bill. I just need to know if I should run up there, you know?"

"OK. Rescue has a white male by the name of Trace Michaels, DOA when they got there. Single bullet wound to the head. It was actually in the doorway of the probation and parole office in that block. They didn't move the body because he was obviously dead when they got there. Guys said half his head was missing from the back. Ugly scene, Nick."

Matthews listened to silence for a moment.

"Nick? Did you get that?"

"Repeat that name for me," Nick said, his brain now flashing.

"Trace Michaels. M-I-C-H-A-E-L-S."

"Thanks, Bill. I appreciate it," Nick said.

"OK, Nicky, but remem-"

Nick hung up before the administrator could finish his sentence.

Three was too many. Four was impossible. Nick was up and on his way through the newsroom, his eyes glazed with remembering, when an editor called out his name.

"I'm going to a shooting in Pompano," he answered, snapping his notepad on the edge of the woman's desk as he walked by and left it at that. On his brisk walk to the elevators he was thinking, Trace Michaels, dead. Maybe they should give this shooter a medal.

Nick drove north on Dixie Highway through the bedroom communities of Wilton Manors and Oakland Park, thinking about Mary Chardain's face, the skin on her left cheek and forehead whitened in splotches where the burned and crinkled skin had to be removed. Her thin arms, lying out straight on the hospital bed, were still gauzed and Nick had already been told by the nurse of the agony the woman would have to go through as those bandages were regularly removed, dead skin removed and then the new raw layer rewrapped. Trace Michaels had sloshed rubbing alcohol over the head of his lover of six years and set her on fire. "Jesus," Nick said aloud in the car, remembering the guy's face. A public defender had argued Michaels's case, claiming that both he and Chardain were drug addicts and the alcohol had accidentally spilled on Mary when they were cooking another dose together and had caught fire. Nick had done a story on Chardain and her daughter, a bright eleven-year-old who witnessed the incident and had jumped to her mother's aid. Michaels had gone down for attempted murder. But somehow-and Nick was thinking about the prison overcrowding that was forcing the release of model prisoners and the use of gain time, which cut their sentences down for good behavior-Michaels was back on the street.

When he got to McNab he turned east and as he went through the light at Cypress Road he could see the collection of cop cars and Pompano's yellow-green rescue trucks blinking in the next block. He pulled over into a small shopping center, parked his car and walked the rest of the way, watching, searching the rooflines of any building tall enough to give a sniper an angle on the offices where the largest knot of paramedics and cops were gathered. By now Nick had lost his skepticism. This was another one. As he approached he saw the paramedics reloading their truck, no one to treat or transport. A couple of deputies were standing just off the sidewalk, talking quietly, their backs purposely turned to the yellow sheet that covered a lump behind them. The body had not been moved and still lay mostly on the sidewalk, only its feet jamming open the door of the parole office. Nick stopped at the crime scene tape that was stretched around three parked cars, positioned to keep the gawkers at a distance. He was looking for a familiar face among the officers to signal to when he saw Hargrave step out of the building with a pen in his mouth and a leather-bound notebook in his hand. Nick stayed silent, watching the detective look down at the body. The ballpoint pen was between his teeth and was flicking back and forth like a metronome. He bent his knees and folded himself down like some adjustable ladder so that he was on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet. Then he peeled back the yellow sheet, looked under it and finally turned his gaze to the sky, the rooflines. Nick knew he had been right.

"Detective?" Nick called out, as any reporter at the scene would.

But unlike any other reporter, he was summoned by a crook of Hargrave's finger and he raised the plastic tape and slipped under.

The beefy sergeant who seemed to run with Hargrave as protection, though Nick doubted that the wiry detective would need any in a street fight, stepped up to block his advance only a few feet from the body.

"It's OK, Tony," Hargrave said and the big man backed off.

The detective stayed in his crouch and Nick joined him. Hargrave said nothing and instead pulled back the yellow tarp and exposed the dead man's face. Nick was not squeamish and knew that it was not Hargrave's intent to shock him. In profile, the man's face had already gone whiter than normal. The dark stubble on his cheek and chin was unnaturally distinct, as if each follicle were raised in relief. Nick knew that the other cheek on the ground would be the opposite, growing dark purple as the blood settled at the lowest point. The man's exposed and wide-open right eye had already lost its glisten of moisture. Hargrave pulled the sheet back farther. The back portion of the man's head, behind the ear, had been ripped open by a heavy round.

"The woman in front of him opened the door and then dropped a set of keys. Our victim apparently had just begun to bend down to get them when she heard a 'slap,' as she described it," Hargrave said. "She's inside, trying not to look at the blood spatter all over her dress."

Nick stood up, not needing to see any more. Hargrave replaced the sheet and stood with him.

"Look familiar?" the detective said.

"Trace Michaels," Nick said quietly. "I did a takeout piece on him a few years ago. He's the guy who doused his girlfriend with alcohol and set her on fire."

"Good memory," Hargrave said.

"I remember them all," Nick replied.

They both went quiet for several seconds, maybe realizing what they both shared.

"I think we better step into the office here, Mr. Mullins."

Hargrave led the way around the body and into the reception area of the parole office. There were plastic chairs against two walls. A gla.s.sed window, slid shut, was in the middle of the third wall. They pa.s.sed through a door into an interior hallway and Nick saw a small huddle of what he took to be employees sitting around a small break table in one room, talking quietly but in voices that were unnaturally high with anxiety and the breathlessness that goes with, "My G.o.d. I could have been walking in that door myself."

Hargrave opened the third door, checked for anyone inside and then nodded Nick in. The detective sat on the edge of a crowded desktop stacked with folders and what Nick recognized as Florida Statute books. With one skinny haunch on the desk, Hargrave's knee hung at a ninety-degree angle like a broken stick and his elbow was bent in the same geometric way while he stroked his chin. Nick had an unwanted vision of an erector set flash through his head.

"Mr. Michaels was coming in for his weekly visit to his parole officer," Hargrave began, opening his notebook as though he were checking the time. "A nine o'clock appointment. The PO says the guy had been consistent ever since he was released from his road prison gig last July. Hadn't missed a check-in and his spot urine had been clean of drugs every time."

"So how would our sniper know when and where he was coming in?" Nick asked, sitting down in the one chair that was probably meant for clients.

Hargrave hesitated at the question and looked Nick in the face. "Our sniper?" he finally said.

"OK, then, my sniper," Nick said, surprising himself with the tight anger in his own voice. He took a deep breath and then laid his findings out for Hargrave, how his research showed that now there were four felons or ex-cons who were dead of high-powered rifle fire and who had also been the subjects of major takeouts that Nick had written for the Daily News. Daily News. Yes, he admitted the jurisdictions of the first two were different, then these two right here in his backyard. Yes, he admitted the jurisdictions of the first two were different, then these two right here in his backyard.

"It's like he's working off my d.a.m.ned bylines," Nick said.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," said Hargrave. "Paranoia we don't need, Mullins."

Nick pressed his lips together into a hard line. OK, he thought. Don't let your mouth get you into trouble again. This time he started out calmly, just the facts.

"Chambliss, Crossly, Ferris and now Michaels," Nick said. "I've done special takeouts on every one of them. Big, bylined pieces."

"So have half a dozen other reporters," Hargrave said.

"No, not in-depth pieces. Not the kind of coverage that really showed who and what these guys were. h.e.l.l, some of these psychopaths never got more than their five minutes of media infamy," Nick responded, again keeping his voice under control. "The Herald Herald and the local city papers all did stories on Ferris. It was a big thing. But Chambliss wasn't local. No other paper down here followed that. and the local city papers all did stories on Ferris. It was a big thing. But Chambliss wasn't local. No other paper down here followed that.

"And this guy lying out there on the sidewalk? Everybody else just treated what he did to his girlfriend like it was some domestic fight."

Hargrave was still perched on the desk like some kind of tabletop decoration, as if his stiff crane neck were going to dip his beak down into a cup of water at any moment.

"OK, say we inject your ego into the equation, Mullins," he finally said. "You friendly with any good snipers? You have any grand theories on which master criminal you've written about is next on the list to have his head blown off? Maybe he's just doing them alphabetically."

Nick stared at the detective, not realizing his own mouth was slightly open while he went through the names in his head and realized that the detective had already mentally sorted them.

"Speaking of lists," Nick said, figuring where the alphabet might fit in, thinking of the Secret Service man's list.

Hargrave might have smiled, but anyone observing would have been hard-pressed to testify to it. The detective opened up his notebook and removed a sheet of paper. Nick tightened his fist, resisting the urge to reach out and s.n.a.t.c.h it from Hargrave's hand.

The detective read, his eyes jumping from spot to spot on a page that Nick couldn't see.

"Since you never gave me Chambliss and this Crossly guy, I'm a little reluctant to be handing over internal doc.u.ments to some reporter."

"They weren't in your jurisdiction," Nick said. "I figured you wouldn't care."

Hargrave just looked up over the top of the paper, his pewter-colored eyes static. Nick figured he was trying to think of something pithy. Or was he actually trying to decide whether he did give a d.a.m.n? The praying mantis was not without some compa.s.sion, Nick thought. After another beat the detective handed the paper to Nick.

"Your copy," he said.

Nick flipped it over. There was no heading, just a typed list of names and dates and jurisdictions that covered a number of different states. Someone had put checkmarks next to Chambliss, Crossly and Ferris. Michaels was farther down, not yet acknowledged. Nick again started from the top, searching while his heart rate increased looking for more names that he recognized as subjects of his own writing. He stopped at a couple of last names that were familiar, but one was in California and the other in Texas. Doubtful, he thought.

"So these are the ones that Fitzgerald is checking out?" Nick said.

"At least they're the ones he was willing to give up."

"You think he's made the connection between these four and my stories?"

"Like I said about your ego, Mullins. Fitzgerald's looking for a threat to the Secretary of State. He's gonna tap anything he can, even if it's some vigilante offing a.s.sholes who burned their lovers or raped little girls. A psycho is a psycho. Who knows their motivations?" Hargrave said. "But our guy isn't some paid political a.s.sa.s.sin. Our guy is a whole different breed. Frankly, I don't know what the h.e.l.l he's capable of."

"OK, so we've got Charles Bronson playing sniper from the rooftops of Broward County."

"You might put it that way, but my name better never show up agreeing with you," Hargrave said. "Besides, the Bronson character was being a h.e.l.l of a lot less discriminating than this guy. Our guy's obviously doing some planning, lying in wait, leaving no sign other than the d.a.m.n bullet behind."

"You match them up with forensics?"

"I just shipped this one," Hargrave said, jerking his thumb behind him toward the front where Michaels's body was cooling on the street. "And we'll have to get the others from those cases of yours out of our jurisdiction if they ever found or kept them. Believe it or not, every department doesn't exactly follow CSI: Miami's CSI: Miami's television protocol." television protocol."

Nick knew that crime scene technicians rarely did so much as a fingerprint check on ninety-nine percent of the crimes committed in their territory, much less ballistics and supposed laser scans. Only the high-profile murders would warrant that and this group of dead criminals were far below priority, though he had a feeling that was about to change.

Hargrave had gone quiet and Nick had the sense that this meeting was through.

"So what's next?" he asked.

"To the morgue," Hargrave said, standing up. "You want me to get your CD back from Dr. Petish while I'm there?"

Jesus, Nick thought, what doesn't this guy know?

"No, that's alright. I'll just get it later after you get done," he said, grinning.

They were at the door when Hargrave suggested that Nick go over the list that he'd given him and let him know if any of the names came up familiar on second reading.