"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 gla.s.s 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 DENNIS and he was dressed for work: dark slacks and a polo shirt with one of those sky-blue hospital smocks over it. 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 h.e.l.l 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, 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. 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 a.s.sumed 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 t.i.tle at the clinic first, Dennis?" Nick said, taking out his notebook and pen.

But Dennis was already starting to back away, maybe a little p.i.s.sed, 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 h.e.l.l 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."

"n.o.body said it was a vigilante."

"n.o.body 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 n.o.body else injured or wounded, which deals out the scattershot g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers."

"n.o.body said it was g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers, Nick."

"So the victim isn't a gang felon?"

"I didn't say that."

"n.o.body said it was an a.s.shole pedophile who killed two little girls either," Nick said and watched for the quick twitch in the corner of Cameron's mouth that always gave him away Both of them stopped the dance for a silent few seconds. Cameron put his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground. Nick put his notebook away and started spinning the pen in his fingers like a miniature baton and watched the top of the ladder where Hargrave and his partner had not yet shown themselves.

"Nick," Cameron finally said. "How did you know to go up there? Were you tipped off?"

This was what they called trading information. It was a subtle agreement to give each other what they had. The only rule was truth. But it worked with certain press officers, the ones with personal integrity and the ones who trusted that Nick wouldn't burn them with the other media. Cameron was one of the few.

"No," Nick said. "It was just a guess based on your guys lining up the shot and the spatter pattern that our photographer caught with the zoom."

Cameron nodded. "And the pedophile thing?"

"Just a tip, Joel. Nothing insidious."

Cameron shook his head. He knew Nick had made contacts over the years. He also knew he'd just made a bad bargain.

"You'll confirm if I get anything first, right?" Nick said just to make sure.

Cameron kept shaking his head, this time with a grin. "Yeah, I'll confirm. You just can't use my name."

Nick returned the grin, slapped the press officer on the shoulder and walked away.

Back out on the street, the media gang was peeling away. But the camera guys were still there. And two remote television news trucks were still on the sidewalk. That meant the body was also still there and hadn't been moved and nothing with more violence or potential for blood had hit the police scanners in South Florida this morning. They were all waiting for the shot of the body bag being loaded into the medical examiner's black SUV, the shot that would inevitably lead the local news.

Nick made two stops on his way back to the newsroom. First to the coffee shop on the ground floor of his building, where he picked up a large with cream and sugar and then stood in the lobby letting the caffeine hit the back of his brain for a few minutes. When half the coffee was gone, he rode the elevator up and went the back way to the library and talked quietly to Lori.

"I shipped a bunch of stuff to your queue, Nick," she said. "Was it him?"

"They're not letting it loose officially yet," he said. "But I think my source is good. What I want to do now is get some kind of an M.O. thing going. Can you do a search first locally and then nationwide on shootings, homicides that involved rifles and that might have been described as sniper-type shootings?"

Lori was writing on a pad. "Pretty broad, but yeah, we can do all the South Florida media. National is going to take some time. We can do most of the online newspaper archives and the a.s.sociated Press stuff. How far back do you want to go?"

"Two, three years," Nick said. "No, make it four."

She looked up from her pad over the top of her frameless reading gla.s.ses. "You've got an editor's approval on this, don't you, Nick?"

In the corporate world of news gathering, computer search time was money. Somebody had to be held responsible for every dime spent. Nick knew that. Lori knew that.

"Yeah," he said. "Deirdre."

Lori was still looking over her lenses. "My a.s.s," she said.

"OK. I'm grandfathered in," Nick said.

"My a.s.s again," she said, this time grinning.

Nick just looked at her with his eyebrows up, surprised.

Lori shook the pad at him and smiled. "Off the books," she said. "For now."

Nick almost winked, but then thought, Don't do that. That's what Carly would call "weird Dad stuff."

"And speaking of books," Lori said, bailing him out, "I've got that Van Gogh book that you said Carly might like." She bent under the shelf and came up with a big picture book he'd commented on weeks ago.

"How's she doing, anyway?"

"Better," Nick said, taking the book and wondering about the coincidence that they'd both thought of his daughter at the same time. "She'll love this, Lori. Thanks."

On the way back through the rat's maze to his desk, Nick kept his coffee cup up to his face. Maybe no one would interrupt him at midswallow. But before he got to his chair an editor for the online edition of the paper asked if he had anything new on the jail shooting and could he please file something so they could put it up on the website. Nick just nodded. In another era newspaper reporters had a daily deadline: Get the best and most accurate story you can by nine or ten o'clock tonight so it makes the morning's paper. Only the wire service and radio reporters had to make several updates during the day, leaving them little time to dig deeper into a story. But in a time of website mania, every daily reporter was in compet.i.tion on an hourly basis. File what you have so the office workers sneaking looks at the news on their computers at their desks can follow your shifting speculation all day.

Nick hated it, but played the game.

He sat down and called up a blank file and wrote:

An inmate being transferred to the county's downtown jail was killed by an unknown gunman at 7:55 this morning, police said.The prisoner, whose name was being withheld by the Sheriff's Office, was the only person injured during the rush-hour shooting as he was being walked into the rear of the jail building in the 800 block of South Andrews Avenue.A Sheriff's Office spokesman said the shooting took place after a van transporting several prisoners was inside a closed gated area just a block from the county courthouse. Investigators were unsure how many shots were fired, said spokesman Joel Cameron, and officials would not speculate on a motive for the killing.

"The shooting piece is in," he called over his shoulder to the online editor when he finished. It had taken him eight minutes. A lot of nothing, he thought. But it'll hold them off for a while.

He took a long sip of coffee and then called up his e-mail message inbox and started at the real work.

Lori had sent him several files and he opened up the one t.i.tled YOURFERRIS, YOURFERRIS, figuring it to be the story he had written on Steven Ferris just four years ago. figuring it to be the story he had written on Steven Ferris just four years ago.

THE PREDATORS AMONG US.

By Nick Mullins, Staff Writer They walked hand in hand on the street, two little girls, one in green-and-white sneakers, the other in pink shorts, sisters strolling home after school.When they were stopped by a soft voice, it didn't startle them-it was familiar. When they turned to the big doughy man with the kind smile, they felt no fear-they knew him. When he invited them into his green pickup, they didn't panic-they'd been in his truck before.In the full sunlight of a warm afternoon, two little girls looked into the face of evil, and didn't recognize it.The public now knows the face of Howard Steven Ferris, 30, who police say confessed to the abductions and killings of Marcellina Cotton, 6, and her sister Gabriella, 8.We know their bodies were found in the attic of Ferris's Fort Lauderdale apartment. We know, according to his confession, that his sole motivation was to s.e.xually a.s.sault them.But if the allegations are true-which only a court can determine now-do we really know Steven Ferris?And what of the other 300 s.e.xual predators identified and released from Florida prisons? What of their dark motivations and urges? How do you recognize evil coming, and what can we do about the men who bring it?The habits and methods of child molesters are no secret. Law enforcement has worked off a general but clear profile for years.The more that is learned about Ferris, the closer he fits that outline. Detectives could have picked him off the pages of their own investigative handbooks.

The story went on to describe how Ferris, a part-time construction worker and handyman, had come across the two girls and their mother in a local park. They had been living out of their car for several months. Nick had interviewed the mother, who could not find work and was in South Florida alone. She was cooking the family meals on the grill of the campsite and at night she made up an impromptu bed of blankets and pillows made of clothes packed in pillowcases in the back seat for her daughters while she slept in the front. She said her pride had kept her from going to the homeless shelters and community aid programs. She was doling out her savings in order to pay the monthly fee for the camping s.p.a.ce. Restricted to only one month at a time, she would drive off for the minimum three days, parking on the streets, and then come back and pay again, taking yet another spot for another month. The woman said she had specifically picked this park because it was close to an elementary school and that she had enrolled her daughters there using the address of a friend who had put them up for a time until her boyfriend had demanded they leave. The mother said she wasn't afraid of living out in the streets as long as her daughters were near. At night she could reach across the seat back and touch her girls and hear them sleeping in the dark. She considered the park safe. And then Steven Ferris had found them.

Like a predator, Ferris had singled out their weakness. Hanging out in the park where children often played, he read their situation and then struck up a conversation with the mother when she had trouble starting her car. Could he help her? He knew something about engines. He fixed some loose spark plug wires. Later, investigators couldn't say whether Ferris had pulled the wires in the first place.

Another evening he showed up with food and treats for the girls. Another time he gave them all a ride to the grocery store. He made himself familiar. He made himself look safe.

Nick remembered the interviews he'd done with teachers and the princ.i.p.al of the elementary school, their recollections of the girls, how bright and eager they were to learn and be with the other children. The way the older one was so protective of her sister. The description of what they were wearing on their final day.

As the girls were walking to the park which they now considered home, Ferris pulled alongside in his familiar truck. He told them their mother had gone out to look at a house they might move to. He said she'd asked him to give them a ride. Maybe the girls were reluctant, but they knew him, had ridden in the truck-with their mother-before.

Ferris took them to a small house less than three miles from the park. He knew it was the younger girl's birthday and promised a cake. But once inside, he molested the six-year-old in a bedroom. When she began to cry, her sister came to her aid. Ferris killed them both and then hid their tiny bodies in the attic of the house. When they failed to show up at the park, the girls' mother went to the school and police were called. She immediately identified Ferris as a man who had befriended them. It took a day for detectives to track him down. They found him in the small rental house and interviewed him for an hour. They read him like a book and returned the same afternoon with a search warrant.