On the way back to his desk Nick made his obligatory stop at the assistant city editor's pod.
"I have an I.D. confirmation on the dead guy at the jail," he said.
The editor rolled back his chair while his fingers were still on his keyboard, reluctant to leave unfinished a sentence for a budget line item that would have to be presented in yet another news meeting at noon.
"OK, great, Nick. Anybody we know?" he said, finally bringing his head and a grin around with the final word.
"Yeah. It's a guy they put away a few years ago on a double homicide and rape of two elementary school sisters."
"No shit?"
"Yeah," Nick said, knowing he'd finally gotten the guy's attention. "He was coming back into court for a hearing on a change of sentencing and it looks like somebody from the outside popped him."
The editor's name was John Rhodes. He'd only been at the Daily News for a year and had been told early that Mullins had an attitude, most of it coming after a car wreck that involved his family some time ago. He was told to walk lightly with him. But he'd also learned quickly that when Mullins brought something to the editors' desk, the guy would have nailed it down.
"No shit," he repeated and looked around to see if anyone else was within earshot and sharing the news of the minute. "How long ago did this guy do the… uh, murder the kids?"
"Four years," Nick said. "Only the sentencing was in litigation."
"So people are gonna remember, right?"
"Yeah, John. People will remember."
"OK, yeah, sure. Whadda you think, Nick. Page one?"
"That's your call, man. I got some more people to talk to," Nick said and then nodded his head toward Deirdre's office. "Tell her it's Steven Ferris. I already got the clips from the library."
Rhodes got up as Nick started to walk away. "Hey, does anyone else have this?" he said.
Nick turned around but didn't say anything.
"I mean, you know, do we have an exclusive here?" Rhodes said.
"They're just sources, John. I don't know who else they talk to," Nick said and went on to his desk. He wanted to ask what the hell difference it made if some other news outlet knew Ferris's was the body now being shipped to the morgue. He wanted to ask when "exclusive" had become the value of a story. But he'd said those things before. Maybe he was learning to keep his big mouth shut.
Morgue, Nick thought when he sat down and logged into his computer. While the machine booted up, he called the medical examiner's office, bypassing the switchboard by using an inside extension to one of the M.E.'s assistants.
"McGregor," the deep baritone announced after eight rings.
"Hey, Mac. Nick Mullins. Sorry if I pulled you away from something disgusting and violated."
"Nick? Nick?" said McGregor, making his voice sound like he was perplexed. "Nick, ahhhh. Sorry, I'm having a hard time coming up with the last name. Do I know you?"
Nick smiled into the phone.
"OK, Mac. So you must be working on this dead inmate with the head wound, right?"
"Did I say that, Mr. Nick? I'm not sure I said that. You know this call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes."
"Jesus, Mac. Did they come down on you guys again for leaking stuff to the press?"
"Come down on us? Christ, Nicky, we even had to do a goddamn hour-long seminar with the county attorney on right to privacy and HIPPA laws and then sign a fucking waiver sheet saying we attended and understood 'all materials presented,' " McGregor said, his legendary sarcasm back in his voice. "I can see 'em waving that damn thing in court and pointing at us: 'We told them, they didn't listen, sue them, not the state.' "
"OK, well, I wouldn't want to get you into any trouble, Mac," Nick said and then waited for what he knew would come.
"Up their arse," the baritone growled. "It's a free country. I'll say what I want, when I want. What do they think they are? British occupiers?"
Nick always listened to McGregor's Scottish rants. The guy was three generations removed from Edinburgh, but wore it like an honor.
"Yeah, Nicky. We got your white male, six feet, two-twenty if he's an ounce, dressed in tailored prison orange and a single bullet just missed his bloody ear hole by an inch."
"Who's doing the autopsy?" Nick said.
"We're a bit in the weeds over here, lad. So the old man himself is going to take this one, but he won't get to it till late tonight. Why don't you come on over about midnight? Bring a snack. You two can swap stories like old times, eh?"
"Thanks, Mac. I might take you up on that," Nick said.
"No thanks needed from you, Nicky. I haven't said a word." Nick heard the chuckle in the voice before the connection clicked off.
So the old man, Broward M.E. Dr. Nasir Petish himself, would be doing the autopsy in one of his peculiar "dead-of-the-night" sessions, as the seventy-three-year-old pathologist called them. Nick thought of the last such session he'd attended, snuffed the memory out of his nose and put off making any plans for his own evening. Now he had a story to write. He still had calls to make to the Department of Corrections and at least get their "No comment." He'd get the prosecutor who had won Ferris's conviction. He'd get a line on a couple of jurors in the murder trial from the court reporter who covered it four years ago. And he'd have to try to find the mother of the little girls, though he knew it would be difficult tracking someone who had been essentially homeless. He'd start with the prosecutor, who might know a way to contact her. He picked up the phone. The always-present deadline was creeping past midday.