“What about the Napoleon gun?” Gannon asked.
“A fabrication.”
More questions and Katrina Kisko weighed in.
“How did you get Nada to surrender?” she asked.
“He asked for food and we gave it to him.”
“What kind of food?” Katrina asked.
“A cheeseburger, fries and a milk shake.”
“What flavor was the shake?” Katrina asked.
“Cripes.” The press officer repeated her question into his radio.
The answer crackled back. “Strawberry.”
Katrina smiled and resumed typing on her BlackBerry.
At that point Gannon’s phone rang.
“This is Lisker.”
“It’s over. There’s no gun, no hostage, no story.”
“Yeah, we’ve got something else. One of our stringers just picked this up on his police scanners—four murders in an armored car hit at an I-87 truck stop.”
“Where?”
“Ramapo. We’re breaking it. We’ll work the phones here but I want you and Dixon to get up there now. You’re the lead. We have to own this story, Gannon.”
“On my way.”
Gannon turned to face Katrina.
“On your way where?” she asked.
“Really, Katrina? You’ve got to be kidding.” Gannon saw Dixon signaling to hustle to his parked car.
“I thought we were friends, we could help each other,” she said.
“Friends? Give me a break.”
“Maybe I handled things wrong. I’m sorry if I hurt you, Jack.”
“I’ve got to go.”
“You’re seriously not going to tell me?”
Gannon left her standing there and rushed to Dixon’s Dodge Journey. Ten minutes later, he watched Lower Manhattan and the East River rush by as Dixon accelerated on FDR Drive, weaving through northbound traffic. As they passed the United Nations and the span of the Queensboro Bridge, Dixon estimated they’d get to Ramapo in an hour.
“By the way, what was that with your extremely hot girlfriend?”
“Ex.”
“All right, your extremely hot ex-girlfriend.”
“Nothing, Angelo.”
“Right.” Dixon laughed.
Gannon’s thoughts of Katrina were eclipsed by the knot tightening in his stomach.
Four homicides awaited him.
A few miles south of Ramapo police roadblocks halted traffic in the south- and northbound lanes of the thruway while a New York State Police helicopter cut across the sky above Gannon and Dixon.
After showing press ID at the roadblock, they were waved through.
Maneuvering through the traffic, Dixon got them down to the exit for the service center, then to the first entrance, but no farther. It was blocked by patrol units with Rockland County.
An officer stepped up to Dixon’s SUV.
“You’re going to have to turn around, sir. You can’t go any farther.”
“We’re press.”
“Who are you with?”
“WPA.” Dixon and Gannon held up plastic IDs from their neck chains.
“All right. Park with the others and stay outside the tape.” The officer pointed to the distant landscaped island with the service center’s sign.
Gannon took stock of the knot of news trucks and cars emblazoned with station call letters. But no media people were around. Dixon grabbed his gear and they walked quickly, keeping outside the yellow tape that stretched around the perimeter of the huge lot. Along the way, they came to clusters of onlookers at the tape and stopped to talk to them.
“All I know is my sister’s a waitress in the restaurant and nobody can tell me anything,” said Reeve Torbey, a man in his twenties wearing a faded Guns & Roses T-shirt. “I texted her, tried calling her cell, the restaurant. I can’t get through.”
Gannon quoted him, got his cell number and left his card, urging him to call and promising to share information.
Agnes Slade, a woman with silver hair pulled up in a bun, shielded her eyes as she stared at the center, a phone clutched in one hand.
“My son’s in town and just called me. He said police are searching everywhere,” she told Gannon. “Things like this just don’t happen here.”
As Gannon and Dixon moved on, the sound of approaching sirens underscored the drama. Gannon heard the deep rumble of a Cessna.
Could be TV news, or police searching for suspects, he figured.
“Here we go,” Dixon said.
Amid the gaps in the lake of rigs, cars and emergency vehicles parked in the lot, Dixon glimpsed the armored truck and crime scene techs working around it. He steadied himself and focused his long lens.
Gannon moved on, exploring farther. Over his years as a crime reporter with the
It had earned him the respect of the seasoned detectives he knew.
Forty yards from Dixon, Gannon stopped and signaled him to the spot.
“Have a look through there.”
They still saw the armored car, but from this different perspective they could now see the sheet on the pavement covering the victim near it. Dixon took more pictures.
“Look through the entrance doors,” Gannon said.
A cloud passed, dimming the sun’s reflection on the glass doors, allowing Dixon to see inside and make out two more sheets covering victims on the lobby floor. In one case, a boot extended from under the sheet. Keeping beyond the tape, Dixon took more pictures, framing them with the outside victim and armored truck in the foreground and the two victims inside in the background with investigators bent over them.
It was a powerful news photo.
A uniformed cop yelled at them to keep moving and pointed toward the flagpoles farther along. As they walked away, Gannon glanced around the scene, feeling the clock ticking down. He had to find a way into the heart of what had happened here and why.
His BlackBerry vibrated with a text. The WPA’s news desk advised him that their stringer was having car trouble and would be late. Gannon was not concerned the WPA had dispatched more staff from headquarters.
