"No, Carly. Not really. I was just trying to find out how it happened. That's my job, to report what happened. You know?"

The girl stayed quiet for several moments.

"Why do you ask?" Nick finally said.

"'Cause you always read that book when you're sad, Daddy."

Jesus, Nick thought. He tried to look into his daughter's eyes but couldn't make them out in the dark room. The kids are too smart for you. You can't overestimate their perception. And you can't hide.

"I know, baby," he whispered. "It just makes me feel better."

He touched her hair and she whispered back, "Me too."

When her breathing went soft and rhythmic and she was finally asleep, Nick carefully rolled off the bed and left, closing the door gently behind him.

Chapter 8.

Nick didn't call the medical examiner's office until he was in the parking lot.

"Would it help you to decide if I told you I was right outside?"

He had called Nasir Petish's cell phone. The doc's midnight autopsy was only just beginning and though the physician had known Nick for several years-they shared an appreciation for Jameson's whiskey and Cannonball Adderley's saxophone-the physician still fell back on administration rules against press access. At least for the first twenty seconds of each conversation.

"You are in my parking area?" Petish said, his East Indian accent flicking high at the end of every sentence.

"Yeah. I figured you'd be up late with this one," Nick said, leaving the a.s.sistant M.E.'s heads-up out of it.

"And what you listening to out there, Mr. Mullins?"

"The Adderleys and, uh, George Shearing at Newport," Nick said, quickly rummaging through his collection to see if he actually had the CD in his car.

"Is that the one during which Mr. Adderley comments on the influence of a young pianist named Ray Charles?" Petish said.

"Yeah," Nick said, coming up with the CD, "that's the one."

"Bring it in, if you will, Mr. Mullins."

Nick went around to the loading dock area where the M.E.'s vans and black Ford Explorers were parked. A light mounted above the double-door entrance bathed the raised deck in an orange-tinted glow. One of the doors opened and a small man with tea-colored skin and wire-rimmed gla.s.ses ushered him in.

"Thanks, Dr. Petish. I appreciate this," Nick said, shaking the man's offered hand.

"Ahhh. No thanks are necessary, Mr. Mullins, for nothing that has been given, yes?"

Nick grinned into the smiling face of the physician and nodded his understanding of the terms. He was never here. No comment. No attribution. He raised the CD and handed the plastic square to the M.E., who scanned the back intently. Petish carried a perpetually charmed look on his face despite his blunt speech and grim profession.

"Ahhh, yes," he said. "The one when Nathaniel still, as you say, had his lip. I like this recording very much."

The doctor read through the playlist as they pa.s.sed through an area of wheeled gurneys and shelves of supplies and then down a wide corridor to his favorite examining room. Inside, the walls were concrete block and painted white with the kind of paint that was shiny and smooth and left an almost plastic texture, the better to wipe clean. The floor was done in gray with similar paint and Nick noted the drain located in the middle. There were two stainless steel tables in the room. Only one was occupied.

Ferris had been heavily built, with powerful arms and thin hips in the way of a farmer or factory worker. Nick remembered the yokelike shoulders and the way they'd slumped during his trial. His freshly shaved skull was now gone from the ears up. Petish had already started with the bone saw.

The M.E. slipped the CD into a portable player on a high shelf and set the music at a low volume and then snapped on a new pair of latex gloves. He almost always began his autopsies by sawing through the skull bone in a circular fashion and then lifting the top portion to reveal the brain inside. The sight did not bother Nick. He had attended autopsies before. The clinical atmosphere was actually a lot less disturbing than the open wounds and aftermaths he'd seen on the streets.

"As you can see, Mr. Mullins, the deceased has considerable damage to the brain from a single wound."

Nick moved with the doctor as he positioned himself at the head of the table and turned the dead man's face to the right. A small black hole appeared to be neatly bored into the exact line where his high-cut sideburn had once been.

"It was a very high-velocity round and would most likely have snapped the head in this direction," Petish said, mimicking the movement by grasping the dead man's stiffened neck and jerking it toward one pale shoulder. When he turned Ferris's head back the other way, an exit wound four times the size of the hole on the other side yawned ragged and blackened with dried blood in the area of the jaw.

"Any way to guess the caliber?" Nick said, letting the doctor make an a.s.sumption instead of making it himself.

"Yes. A .308, if I am not mistaken," Petish said while sneaking a peek at Nick and smiling at his raised eyebrows. "Oh, they recovered the round, Mr. Mullins. I am good, but certainly not that good."

Nick instinctively reached for a notebook from his back pocket, but then simply scratched a spot on his thigh, recalling Petish's rules.

"If the marksman was only just lucky, he could not have been more accurate," Petish said. "To enter the skull from this point and the expansion of bore diameter damage as it enters the brain would have the effect of instant cessation of all motor and neurologic response."

"Dead before he hit the ground," Nick said.

"Precisely," the doctor said as he pointed out other discolored spots on the body.

"My external examination of the deceased shows a number of bruises both anterior and posterior. Some very old, some more recent, but none that would have been administered in the last few days," Perish began as if he were reading into a report recorder.

"Jailhouse jostle," Nick said, thinking of the status Ferris would have had at MDCC as a child molester.

"Possibly," the M.E. said as he positioned a scalpel over the body's chest and began making his incisions.

Nick concentrated on the tattoos that Ferris had obviously gotten while he was inside. Serpents in dark ink that now stood out on the pale insides of both forearms. Somewhat crude but detailed enough to see the fierceness of eyes and sharpness of claw. Nick wondered if Ferris had paid a prison artist to do them so he could project his toughness or whether it was an expression of what was inside his head.

Petish worked quickly and meticulously, cutting away inside the chest cavity, with deft strokes slicing the connective tissue of major organs and carefully weighing each before unceremoniously dropping them into a five-gallon bucket on the floor nearby. In the air, the Adderley brothers played a buoyant riff of 1930s blues in stark juxtaposition to what was going on at the table. Nick asked an occasional anatomy question and watched as the doctor took tiny samples of the organs and slipped them into test tubes for later microscopic examinations.

"Don't you think that hole in his head makes a pretty good case for cause of death?" Nick said, only half joking as the physician pointed out a darkened portion of lung tissue, snipped and bottled it.

Petish looked up for the first time. "Really, Mr. Mullins. Have you known me to be anything other than completely thorough?"

Nick kept quiet but had to turn his head away when the doctor removed the lower intestines from the corpse. After the weighing, the M.E. misjudged the bucket below and one end of the colon caught an edge, flipping a stream of liquid through the air and against one wall. Those who thought they'd witnessed autopsies by watching CSI: Miami CSI: Miami were missing this part unless they had scratch-and-sniff TV. The odor was nearly intolerable. But Nick was bothered more by the growing disdain he was building in his head by going back to the serpents and then recalling Ferris's crime scene: the little house, the small body bags. Instead of the scientific atmosphere he usually held to at these proceedings, he could feel a hate building. were missing this part unless they had scratch-and-sniff TV. The odor was nearly intolerable. But Nick was bothered more by the growing disdain he was building in his head by going back to the serpents and then recalling Ferris's crime scene: the little house, the small body bags. Instead of the scientific atmosphere he usually held to at these proceedings, he could feel a hate building. f.u.c.king deserved it f.u.c.king deserved it was on his lips when Petish said, "There it is." was on his lips when Petish said, "There it is."

Nick stepped closer to look at the cutting board that Petish had lain on top of the chest and realized the M.E. had Ferris's heart out and was snipping an artery with a pair of scissors.

"What? He had a heart attack," Nick said and then realized his voice was much too anxious.

Petish shook his head with a look of smiling exasperation. "No, no, no, Mr. Mullins. Yes, you can see the hardening of the artery here. But no. I was speaking of the recording."

He was now pointing the scissors at the CD player and the band was just launching into "We Dot" and Cannonball had just made reference to a young man named Ray Charles.

"Ha!" said the doctor. "A young man. Yes. Did you hear?"

It was three AM AM when Nick shook hands with the doctor, minus the latex gloves, and made his way across the darkened parking lot. A false dawn was showing in the east and even though he knew what time it was, and could feel the dry tiredness in his eyes like a parchment on his irises, the possibility of daybreak encouraged him. He got behind the wheel and sat for a while in the quiet, trying to gauge the anger he was still holding for the dead man inside. Why be p.i.s.sed at a guy who took one through the brain and had just been eviscerated in front of you? h.e.l.l, wasn't that enough? But Nick was transferring and he knew it. The face of the man who had killed half his family was the one he'd wanted to see on that table. when Nick shook hands with the doctor, minus the latex gloves, and made his way across the darkened parking lot. A false dawn was showing in the east and even though he knew what time it was, and could feel the dry tiredness in his eyes like a parchment on his irises, the possibility of daybreak encouraged him. He got behind the wheel and sat for a while in the quiet, trying to gauge the anger he was still holding for the dead man inside. Why be p.i.s.sed at a guy who took one through the brain and had just been eviscerated in front of you? h.e.l.l, wasn't that enough? But Nick was transferring and he knew it. The face of the man who had killed half his family was the one he'd wanted to see on that table.

He'd almost gotten over it, the anger, the raw feeling for revenge. Or at least he'd pushed it back into a dark spot in his brain so he could get back to work, get back to Carly. Then he'd heard last week that Robert Walker was out. Then he'd called in a marker with a friend at the Department of Corrections and Parole to find out where Walker was living. He knew that he'd put his own a.s.s in trouble if anyone found out that he was stalking the man. But he shook off the argument and started his car, rolled down the window and let the moist night air sweep in around him as he started east along a route and a destination he now knew by heart.

Chapter 9.

Nick slowed and drove down Northwest Eighteenth Terrace, past Highsmith's Tool & Die on the corner, past Willow Manor, the oddly located Cuban nursing home where the poorer old folks went to die. He turned off his headlights and slid down warehouse row with only his parking lights on. Under the dirty white cast of high streetlights a handful of cars, a couple of pickup trucks and some delivery trucks were parked in front of the line of corrugated steel buildings. He stopped two blocks down and then backed into a spot next to the big Dumpster in front of Flynn's Awnings and Rain Gutters. From here he could see across the roadway to the painted green door of Archie's Tool Sharpening Shack and still use the Dumpster as cover. He turned off the ignition and listened to the ping of cooling metal for several minutes until the silence wrapped around the car, and then he reached for the coffee. He had stopped at an all-night 7-Eleven and bought the twenty-four-ounce cup, loaded it with cream and sugar and also bagged two donuts as an afterthought. He started on the chocolate glaze and sipped at the steaming cup and checked the end of the street. If a police sector car came through on the overnight shift, he would have to explain himself. But he'd done this three times since tracing Walker's work address and no cops had come by yet. It was probably just off their regular radar, but this week it had become the late-night center of his. He checked his watch-four fifteen-and made sure the alarm was on and then stared out at Archie's sign and before the first donut was done, he fell asleep.

He dreamed the dream he always did, the one where he is sitting back in the third seat of the family van while his dead wife is driving. His dead child watches vigilantly out a side window, counting the lighted deer she spies among the Christmas decorations. Carly is at the other window, trying to outdo her sister. It is dark outside. "The girls," which is what he calls all three, are out cruising through the local neighborhoods on Christmas Eve. In snowless South Florida, the garishness of the colored displays seems profoundly out of place, lights strung in palms, the white-wired deer bending their heads and munching at gra.s.s that is eternally green. The girls are laughing at some observation Carly has made about a deer that has lost the electrical current from all his bulbs but the single red one at his nose and a broken strand running down one leg. But Nick is in the back, realizing that his wife seems oblivious to the fact that she is driving in a constant loop, around and around the traffic circle near their house, going nowhere, seeing the same houses, the same deer, over and over.

Nick doesn't see deer. He stares out of his dead daughter's window and sees the headlights of a pickup truck cresting the hill that rises up over the interstate. He has to twist his head around and look out back as his wife continues the circle and he sees the headlights grow larger and brighter. Nick can feel the apprehension coming into his throat but cannot speak. He cannot move his legs or arms to crawl over the back seat to pull his daughters to him, to shield them from what is about to occur. He cannot shout to his wife to warn her. He cannot tell her to speed up or slow down. In the dream he can only watch the synchronization of the circular movement and the oncoming truck, a speeding straight line of light coming to match the slow orbit of his family. Nick feels the hot tears slide down his cheeks even before the impact.

Eeeep, eeeep, eeeep, eeeep.

Nick's eyes flashed open and at first he thought the noise was the high-pitched bleating of an ambulance and then realized the sound was coming from his wrist and then reality shook his brain loose. He was in the parking lot, next to the Dumpster, the sky lightened enough to have turned off the overhead lamps, his coffee long gone cold. He took a deep breath and rubbed his hands over his face and was not surprised to find moisture there. It happened each time. He was no longer mystified by the dream or the emotion. Nor was he one step closer to accepting it.

He sat up straight and surveyed the street. An additional delivery truck, maybe two, had arrived. At a bay halfway down the block, he watched the movement of a single man bending to pick up a ball of trash, or a wayward piece of hardware, or a half cigarette b.u.t.t that might be used later in the morning. Then his eyes moved automatically to Archie's and the empty spot where Robert Walker would park his F-10 pickup and then the beige color of the truck Nick had memorized forced him to focus. He watched Walker slowly approach, not speeding, never speeding, and then carefully pull into the open spot. Only then did Nick check his watch. It was six fifteen. Not a minute late or early, like Walker knew exactly how fast to drive to roll into that spot at the perfect moment, every day, Monday through Friday. Intersection of time and place.

When the truck's brake lights went out, Nick watched the man's head move slightly down, gathering things from his front seat. When Walker opened the door, the interior dome light came on and added color and dimension to the man. He stepped out, tall and heavyset with a mop of straw-colored blond hair sprouting from under a ball cap. He was wearing his work uniform, blue pants and a short-sleeved white shirt with the name ROBERT ROBERT st.i.tched across the breast pocket. Nick knew this even from a distance, because he had been up close and personal with Robert Walker. st.i.tched across the breast pocket. Nick knew this even from a distance, because he had been up close and personal with Robert Walker.

The day after Nick learned of the release, he staked out the house where Walker lived before the accident, even though he knew the sight of the man would dig open the scar. On the second day he watched him pull into the driveway in an old pickup truck, the profile unmistakable, the face unforgettable. Nick stayed in his car parked across the street. The third day he did the same thing at the same time, early evening, when Walker was obviously arriving home from work. This time the truck pulled up next to Nick's car and Walker rolled down his window.

"Mr. Mullins?" Walker said, his voice raspy and slow. "You can't do this, sir."

Nick just stared into his face, saying nothing.

"I called the Sheriff's Office, Mr. Mullins, and they said you can't just park outside my house and hara.s.s me."

Nick remained silent.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Mullins. I said that a hundred times, I'm sorry about what happened. But you can't stalk me like this, sir. I did my time."

Nick had almost spit out in anger that the street was public property and he would do any d.a.m.n thing he wanted to on it. He wanted to scream in the man's face that his lousy eighteen-month sentence was nothing. Nothing! The manslaughter conviction was a sham. It had been a homicide, and Walker knew it! Instead he just stared at the man's face until he rolled his window back up and drove away.

Last Thursday one of Nick's friends with the department warned him that they couldn't ignore Walker's complaints about him parking outside his house. So Nick found out where Walker worked and was required to show up each day during his probation, and now this was where he came at six fifteen in the morning.

Nick watched Walker holding a lunch box and thermos in one hand while he locked up his old truck with the other. Was there booze in the thermos? Nick thought. Could he catch him violating his court order to quit drinking? Walker had refused a Breathalyzer test at the scene of the accident, and they drew blood from him after he was hospitalized. By then his readings weren't over the legal limit. There was no doc.u.mented proof to make a DUI charge, but everyone knew that was bulls.h.i.t when they did it three hours after the fact. Now Nick watched him walk to the door of Archie's and work a key into the lock and then step inside without once looking back over his shoulder. Nick wasn't sure if Walker had noticed him parked across the way beside the Dumpster. So he waited until he saw the blinds open in the only window to Archie's, and hoped the man was looking out and knew that someone watched him, that someone would never forget.

Chapter 10.

Michael Redman was peering out the gla.s.s door of the rented townhouse, watching for the delivery truck that would fill the newspaper racks across the street. It was seven in the morning and he'd timed the stubby-looking guy who pulled up in the step van around sunup and stuffed the day's news into the honor boxes and collected the quarters. Redman could have watched the television news last night and seen their coverage of the shooting, but he had no use for that. There was only one story he wanted to see, only one journalist who would tell the truth.

When the silver-sided van rolled into view, Redman took a step back from the door. No sense being more obvious than he needed to be. He'd taken this place back from the main roads and near a corner where a ca.n.a.l split the flat land and separated two equally boring housing developments. He'd signed a year lease with a fict.i.tious name knowing he'd skip out on it in a month at the most. He was surprised, though, that his old stomping grounds had felt so comfortable. He didn't have to map out the routes and time out the distances to the interstates and account for bridge openings and all the other exigencies that might hamper his movement or possibly his escape. Redman had worked these streets as a sheriff's road deputy for several years. When he moved onto the department's SWAT team the surveillances and the detailed mapping of troubled neighborhoods only intensified. That knowledge and training aided him now. Just like when he used to do undercover INTEL gathering, he would have to be careful out in public. Some of the criminal lowlifes he'd dealt with then were still out here. And now he also had to stay cognizant of the law enforcement personnel who might remember him. So he tended to move only at night. Shopped for food at three AM in the twenty-four-hour grocery, pumped his own gas after midnight, had the local phone company install a DSL line while he was out and made sure all of his lethal equipment was locked in a storage garage signed for under yet another alias. During the day he stayed in, doing research and setting up his next target. The Daily News Daily News archives had made that so much easier for him. He could even do a search that would highlight all of Nick Mullins's bylines. The man had a gift for writing about the evil a.s.sholes in the world that deserved to die. archives had made that so much easier for him. He could even do a search that would highlight all of Nick Mullins's bylines. The man had a gift for writing about the evil a.s.sholes in the world that deserved to die.

Redman stood at the door waiting anxiously for a full five minutes after the deliveryman had pulled away before slipping on his dark windbreaker and then walking out to the honor box with a handful of coins in his fist.

By Nick Mullins, Staff Writer On his way to try to overturn his death sentence, a convicted child murderer and molester instead walked into his execution yesterday as he entered the Broward County Jail in downtown Fort Lauderdale.In a blatant morning shooting as commuters drove by on Andrews Avenue, Steven Ferris, convicted three years ago for the murder and rapes of a 6-year-old girl and her 8-year-old sister, was killed by a single bullet fired from somewhere outside the fenced compound just before 8 AM, AM, said Broward Sheriff's Office spokesman Joel Cameron. said Broward Sheriff's Office spokesman Joel Cameron."One man was fatally wounded as the detainees were being brought through the main jail's secured north entrance. The location of the shooting is not accessible to the public and no member of the public was in any way endangered," Cameron said.Police authorities would not confirm the ident.i.ty of the dead man, but the sister-in-law of Steven Ferris, Charlene Ferris, said that the Sheriff's Office had called to inform her husband, David, of his brother's killing. David Ferris, who attended each day of his brother's jury trial in 2001, was unavailable for comment."David still loved his brother," Charlene Ferris said. "And now we have a funeral to plan."On Thursday sheriff's officials would not speculate on the motive for the shooting but said they had not yet ruled out a random drive-by or that a shot meant for one of the other inmates had simply struck Ferris by chance. But other sources described Ferris's wound as being precisely placed to kill instantly. The ammunition used, a .308-caliber round, is commonly used in high-powered rifles. Less than two hours after the shooting, investigators were inspecting the rooftop of a building directly across from the jail compound. Spokesman Cameron would not comment on the possibility that someone may have taken the deadly shot from that position.a.s.sistant State Attorney Mark Sheffield, who originally prosecuted Ferris and was due in court today to defend the death sentence, received by the convicted murderer, said:"I believe we would have been able to withstand the defense challenge that Mr. Ferris did not deserve to go to the electric chair. I don't know how anyone familiar with the case, in which a man hunts down two innocent children, rapes and murders them, could accept anything less. But obviously, after what has occurred, there will be no further action by this office."When contacted late Thursday in his office, Ferris's defense attorney, Jake Meese, said:"This is a tragic situation. We were prepared this morning to show that Mr. Ferris did not receive a fair sentencing three years ago and that he was deserving of an equitable resentencing. The man never got his day in court."Meese was Ferris's attorney at the time of his conviction and had presented his defense over a two-week trial to a jury of twelve that convicted Ferris of two counts of murder and two counts of s.e.xual a.s.sault of a minor under the age of eleven.

The rest of Mullins's story was on the inside pages of the A section and reiterated the background of crimes that Ferris had been guilty of. Redman had read those accounts a dozen times. When he got back inside, he flattened the newspaper out on his door-panel table and reread the beginning. He was only mildly surprised that Mullins had named the caliber of the sniper round he had used. But that was standard ammunition. No way to trace it unless they obtained the weapon, and there was no way they would ever take his weapon. Redman was also stopped by the quote from the defense attorney. What an a.s.shole. Never got his day in court! Ferris should have been strapped into Old Sparky and electrocuted. Redman didn't have a broad-brush dislike for lawyers. He knew they were just doing their jobs, and some did them professionally and ethically. They'd studied and trained and worked their way up the line, just like he had, and some were d.a.m.ned good. He'd had a pretty d.a.m.ned good one himself when the PBA represented him before the shooting board after he was involved in the death of a suspect after a SWAT operation. But come on, Ferris never got his day in court? This guy didn't need to spit out that old cliche. Whose a.s.s was he kissing? He knew what he was defending. He had to be thinking good riddance.

Redman shook his head and carefully cut the story out with a razor blade, then folded it and placed it in a manila folder before putting it into the back half of an accordion file. Reports, he thought. Always hated writing up the reports afterward. In Iraq, his Marine spotter did all the reports. Redman only fired the shots, and then sat alone back at the G.o.dd.a.m.n dusty tent barracks and let it grind on him, not knowing whose lives he'd taken that day. This time he knew. And the next one he would know too. Redman rifled through the accordion file, split into two parts; the back half were missions accomplished, the front half were possibilities. He pulled three jackets from the front and on the door he spread out three manila envelopes. The first thing he did was take out the newspaper printouts and then he began to read.

Nick was back home by the time his daughter got up for school. He was at the kitchen table looking through the sports pages when Carly shuffled across the tile floor, her eyes half opened and puffy with sleep. Her small high voice scratched out, "Morning, Daddy," and he pushed back his chair and let her climb onto his lap.

"Hey, sweetheart. How'd you sleep?"

"OK."

"Good," he said and let her head rest warm and scented with sleep into the crook of his neck. He said nothing for a full minute, letting their hearts talk in silence.

"Big day today?" he finally said.

"Not really."