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 glassed window, slid shut, was in the middle of the third wall. They passed 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 God. 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. 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 damned 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. Hell, some of these psychopaths never got more than their five minutes of media infamy,” Nick responded, again keeping his voice under control.