"Matt. How's it goin'?" Nick said to the Channel 10 guy.

"Hey, Nick," he answered, nodding in the direction of the gate. "They got somebody down at the bottom of the steps to the back door. Gotta guess that it's a prisoner or they wouldn't still be standing around letting the body lie there."

Nick looked around and found the Daily News photographer. She was on one knee at the far edge of the fence, a camera body up to her face. He walked over to join her.

"Hi, Susan."

"Figured you'd be here," she said, not bothering to look away from her viewfinder.

Nick bent down. From her vantage point he could see a long lump shrouded with a yellow sheet at the base of the staircase. He always wondered why they used bright yellow, making it obvious to anyone and everyone that a corpse was lying there. It stuck out, a happy color surrounded by the dark green and blue of uniforms and gray concrete and black van. While the camera guys focused on that, Nick stood up and began searching the faces of the officers, trying to recognize someone he knew, someone he could call later to get an inside edge on information.

A couple of the jail guards were standing together off to the side, smoking, either as a nerve salve or just taking advantage of an unscheduled break from the inside. Four uniformed road deputies were huddled near the still-opened back doors of a detention transport van. Nick knew that the vans usually carried anywhere from two to eight prisoners from the city jails around the county or from state prisons when an inmate needed to show up for court. The main downtown courthouse was right next door, attached by an elevated walkway. It made it easier and quicker to transport defendants back and forth to hearings and legal appearances.

At first Nick found it odd that no one was at the top of the steps guarding the door.