"Morning, fellas," Nick said. "Nice day for a shooting, huh?"

They looked into his face like he was speaking Mandarin, then at each other and then up at the roof, where Cameron was just mounting the ladder to come down. Nick walked over to Susan, who was looking at her digital display.

"Get a good shot of my ass while I was on the way down?"

"Hard to miss," she said. "But that's all I got. You could have at least waited for me to come around so I could get up there with you."

"Sorry," he said. "Guess I wasn't thinking. Just going on a feeling that it wasn't just the weather those guys were staring up at from that spatter spot."

She was packing away her telephoto lens.

"Find anything up there to prove it was a sniper?"

Nick shook his head, as much at her skilled perception as at her question. She'd probably been ahead of him all along.

"Clean," he said, looking away from her instead of giving her the satisfaction of knowing that he was impressed with her deduction. He turned his attention to the double glass doors that led into the clinic. Witnesses? Just inside, Nick could make out the figure of a small man hovering, taking furtive looks out in the direction of the cops. Cameron had just made the last rung and stopped, trying to figure the easiest way to make the last leap.

Nick sauntered as best he could over to the doors and when the little man saw him coming he hesitated, like he was going to scramble back inside, and then changed his mind and stepped out the door to meet him. Nick tried to look official and it worked.

"Good morning," he said.

"Yes, sir. Good morning."

His name tag said DENNIS and he was dressed for work: dark slacks and a polo shirt with one of those sky-blue hospital smocks over it.

"Mind if I ask you a question?"